


Vigilance VII: Inevitable

by nightinngales



Series: Vigilance [7]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Mod References, Modded Skyrim, Skyrim Main Quest, Slow Burn, Started from the bottom now we here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 268,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24014545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightinngales/pseuds/nightinngales
Summary: Fate has a way of making itself known, no matter how one might try to ignore it. Eres must step into the role of Dragonborn, or suffer the consequences. No one ever claimed that defeating Alduin would be easy. There are things in this world that are inevitable - fate, destiny, and perhaps even fulfilling an ancient prophecy. Being in love. She is the Dragonborn, body of a mortal, soul of a dragon--but just how much weight can one woman carry upon her shoulders?
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Serana
Series: Vigilance [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585780
Comments: 177
Kudos: 258





	1. Ustengrav

**Author's Note:**

> We in it now, lads.  
> I have a fair amount of this act outlined already and, I'll be honest. This act will probably end up being as long as Act 3, if not longer. I'm putting a conservative estimate at around 100k. Lol. I have no self control whatsoever. BUT! A lot of exciting things will be happening in this act, including a little something you all have been waiting for for, oh, almost 400k or so? Lol what a mess. Let me put it this way. I've written a whole 2 chapters of this so far and it's already at 18k. You guys are gonna get sick of reading this lmao

“One of these days,” Serana sighs out as they approach the ruins, “you’re going to take me somewhere _nice._ I’ve had about enough of caves and ruins, you know.”

Eres rolls her eyes, taking the stairs two at a time. “It’s not like _I_ like being here, either.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Serana grouses.

“Inigo is surprised you don’t like it here,” Inigo says, ever the cheerful one. “Don’t vampires like crypts? There must be plenty of coffins in here for you to sleep in, or dead people for you to—” he frowns, waves a hand vaguely in the air, “do whatever it is you do with them.”

Eres makes a face. Serana echoes it, grimacing. “Don’t say it like that,” Serana mutters. “You’re making it sound… weird.”

“Necromancy _is_ weird,” Eres replies, and she pushes the door open. “If you haven’t noticed.”

“Not _that_ kind of weird.”

Eres thinks of one of the necromancers she had once encountered before, somewhere in a ruin in the icy northern tundra, and her grimace deepens. “You’d be surprised what kind of things necromancers get up to.” When Serana snaps her eyes to stare at her, Eres shakes her head. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Serana says, but from the look on her face, it’s apparent she’s gotten exactly what kind of ‘things’ Eres had been referencing.

“I always wondered,” Inigo muses, as they head deeper inside the ruins, “vampires are undead, yes?”

Eres, just barely, hears Serana’s muttered, _“Oh, no_ ,” under her breath. “Yes,” Eres answers, when it seems as though Serana will not.

“So,” Inigo turns, and his mouth curls into an impish grin. “If you had sex with a vampire, would it be considered necrophilia?”

“Run,” Serana says, just as Eres says, “Shor’s _stones_ , Inigo!”

Inigo does not run, but he does move several meters ahead of them - well out of range for any physical retaliation, with a parting cackle as he goes. But Eres does feel the air chill at her right side, and when she turns, Serana has a half-formed spike in one hand, eyes narrowed at Inigo’s back. When Serana notices her gaze, she says, “Just one. One time is all I need.”

Eres covers Serana’s hand with her own, pushing it down. She feels her skin tighten with the cold, frost forming on her fingertips—and then the magic fades, and there is only Serana’s hand in hers. “He’s just trying to get under your skin.”

“Well, it’s working. I’m going to kill him at this rate.”

“You’re not going to kill him.”

“I am willing to settle for a bit of maiming.”

When Eres looks up at her, exasperated, she sees the twinkle of mirth in Serana’s eyes, and makes a show of rolling her own. “You’re not going to maim him, either.”

“He _did_ just imply—” Serana’s mouth closes, and she frowns. “Well, nevermind, actually.”

Eres raises a brow. “I don’t think it counts as necrophilia,” she says, when Serana moves ahead of her. She tries not to laugh when Serana stumbles, tripping over her own feet. “For what it’s worth.”

“I’m not…worried about that,” Serana says haltingly, and she makes a point of staying several steps ahead of Eres as she goes. Probably so she doesn’t have to look at her.

“Sure.” Eres doesn’t believe that for a second. To be fair - she has to admit she had debated that with herself once, on one of those nights where she’d been thoroughly unable to sleep. She had, eventually, come to a reasonable conclusion, at least in her mind. “You’re still technically alive, in a way, so it doesn’t count. It would be different if you were like—like an _actual_ dead body or something. But you’re pretty much just a cold-blooded human. With a special diet.”

“We can stop talking about this anytime now,” Serana says, aiming for flippant but not quite managing it. “I don’t like to think of myself as—”

“Dead?” Eres prompts, and this time Serana does look back at her, just long enough to send her a frown in answer. “Close, but not quite.”

“You seem awfully casual about all this for a Vigilant.”

“Luckily for you,” Eres says, injecting a bit of false cheer into her voice, “I’m not a Vigilant anymore.” If she’s being honest, she doesn’t even have to fake the happiness that much—she’s _glad_ to not be one anymore.

Being a Vigilant will probably always be a part of her, of course. She had spent more than a year of her life as a Vigilant, had even led them for a time, and so much of who she is today is likely thanks to all that she had experienced in her days as Keeper—and her confrontations with Molag Bal. Even though she’d turned in her resignation, given her mantle as Keeper to someone else, some part of her might always feel a little bit like a Vigilant. She still carries the rusted Horn of Stendarr with her wherever she goes, if only as a reminder of where she’d come from—and what she’s been through and survived.

Her Vigilant days are behind her now, though, and in a way, so is Stendarr - and Molag Bal himself. She no longer has anything that might prevent her from engaging in—well, whatever it is that she and Serana end up becoming together. That’s one thing they still haven’t managed to talk about. Between Auria’s constant interruptions and Inigo’s refusal to allow Eres to leave Fellburg without him, they haven’t had much time alone. Inigo has tried to make himself scarce, at times, but there’s only so much one can do when traveling together.

At that thought, Eres finds herself sighing as she follows the two ahead of her. She knows, now, more than ever, that she cannot afford to take time off to pursue anything frivolous - no matter how much she might want to. What village might be attacked next, if she kept wasting so much time avoiding her destiny as Dragonborn? How many more people might be injured or killed by dragons hoping to impress Alduin? She doesn’t have time for her and Serana to take a break and go somewhere on their own where they might be able to figure things out between them.

There just isn’t enough _time_. There never has been, really, but it is a point that Eres feels driven home more and more with each passing day. If only she had the time… She and Serana could finally clear the air between them, get on the same page—Eres is _certain_ , now, that Serana feels just as strongly as she does, but they’ve had no room to pursue it, no opportunity to develop it, no—no _nothing_ , really.

It’s more frustrating than Eres wants to admit. She cannot blame Inigo for his insistence on joining them - he wanted to be a good friend, and friends _help_ when their friends need it. Eres shouldn’t be annoyed with him for that, but there is a part of her that is. There is a part of her that wants him gone. Just for a while. And then there is a part of her that feels guilty even for hoping for that. Inigo had gone into _Coldharbour_ for her, when they’d barely known each other for more than a few weeks. And here she is, ungrateful for his help? All because she wants a little alone time?

The alone time can wait, Eres knows. It doesn’t make it less frustrating to look at Serana, to know what she wants - to know what they _both_ want - and not have the freedom to do anything about it. Not have the privacy to talk or to—well. Now’s not the best time to think about that.

“This door won’t open,” Inigo says to her, sometime later, after they’ve cleared the room of the undead guardians that had once protected this place. Or, perhaps they had simply been buried here. He gestures behind him, at a door preceded by three strange pillars. Beyond it, Eres can see a long hall, and what she would bet is their next destination. They needed to get that door open somehow.

Eres moves toward him, mind distracted away from Serana for the time being. “Have you tried looking for a pull chain some—” Something hums beneath her feet. She stops, frowning, and looks down. The pillar beside her is silent. Unmoving. She could have sworn she heard something.

“Wait!” Inigo exclaims, pointing, “do that again!”

“Do what again?”

Hands on her shoulders, pulling her back several steps. The hum beneath her feets erupts once more, but this time she sees it—the pillar beside her leg is set alight with bright lines of some kind of magical energy crawling up its face in strange, unfamiliar patterns, and somewhere ahead of her, Eres hears the sound of a metal door scraping open.

It takes several minutes for them to test the strange pillars, first with Inigo, then Serana, and lastly herself - they only react to _her_ proximity, not the others’, and each of them triggers the opening of a door. But only for a brief moment, and too quickly for Eres to run through to the other side at a normal speed, or even her fastest sprint. That is, it would have been too fast—if the Greybeards had not taught her the exact thing she needed to pass it.

“Great,” she mutters, and rubs preemptively at the skin of her throat. Of _course_ this ruin would have puzzles like this. If the Greybeards wanted her to come here, it only made sense that they would choose a place that would test her knowledge and control of the Shouts they had taught her. This one, she is certain, she will have to use the _Wuld_ Shout to be able to speed through it quickly enough to reach the other side—and hopefully, deactivate the trap from there to allow the others to follow her in. Otherwise, she would be stuck traversing the rest of the ruins on her own.

The alternative would be allowing Serana to run her past the pillars, which Eres thinks would work just as well, but she has a feeling that’s quite beside the point. She is also certain the Greybeards had not counted on her having a vampiric companion that could run at super-speed at will.

“Well?” Serana asks, prompting her. “You want me to run you through it?”

“I should be able to do it on my own.” At that, Serana raises a brow. Eres frowns back at her, brows furrowing for a moment before she remembers - Serana has never actually seen her use _Wuuld_ —only _Fus_. She has no idea that Eres is capable of moving that quickly on her own, if only in short bursts.

“If you say so,” Serana says, doubtful, and crosses her arms across her chest to wait—likely expecting that Eres would try, fail, and then eventually concede to allow Serana to help her.

_Not today,_ Eres thinks, but she can’t say that she feels quite smug about it. It’s been so long since she’s Shouted at all that it takes her a long moment to even recall how she’d last done it—and she’d had a lot more practice with _Fus_ than with _Wuuld_. If she bungles this in front of Serana after making such a show of being able to do it on her own, she might just fling herself off the nearest cliff she can find.

The air is still and silent around her. In the distance, Eres can hear the babbling of running water, lapping over rocks at the bottom of a nearby underground pool. To her left, she can hear Inigo shifting from foot to foot impatiently, can practically sense the energy in him even without seeing him with her own eyes. She can feel it in the air around her, in the ground—and so, too, can she feel Serana just behind her, just over her right shoulder, a pillar of neverending strength and unwavering support. A font of something both warm and cool at once, of something soothing and reassuring, of something that feels like the wind of Kyne’s breath upon her back.

Eres digs down, deep inside herself, and calls to the front of her mind her darkest memories. The ones that would stir the anger inside her, the ones that would light a fire deep inside her, that would send her blood first to simmering and then to boiling hot in her veins. Eres pulls at that anger, coaxes it, _feeds it_ until it swells, until it lurches up into her chest and collects there in a heavy, burning sphere of power.

And then, in one breath, she lets it out—with a bellow, with a snap of something like thunder, and when she blinks, she is on the other side, staring at the far wall to the sound of the gates dropping closed behind her.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she hears Serana murmur, perhaps as thoroughly impressed as she’s ever heard the woman sound before. At that, Eres turns, ignoring the sudden onset of dizziness, and moves to pull the chain to raise the gates. She had expected them to be there - she is not surprised that they are. In ruins like these, there is almost always some kind of mechanism to deactivate a trap from the other side of it. How might those setting them be able to get out again, otherwise?

“Useful,” Serana says to her, smirking as she approaches. “You’re _almost_ half as fast as me.”

Eres rolls her eyes, good-naturedly. “Careful now,” she warns. “This place isn’t going to be big enough for that ego of yours if you keep this up.” Serana sends her an impish smile, eyes bright with mischief. Eres tries not to stare.

“Come _on_ , lovebirds!” Inigo calls, from ahead of them. “The flirting can wait. The Horn cannot!”

“I’m _going_ to kill him,” Serana promises, as Eres hurries past her. “I promise you that.”

There are several more similar puzzles in the ruins, though between the Inigo and Serana, it seems by the end that they’ve made some kind of game out of coming up with alternatives to getting around the various traps and puzzles without being Dragonborn. At first, Eres writes this off as boredom - traipsing through Nordic ruins isn’t the most fun she’s ever had, either, and her throat is scratchy and sore by the time they reach the end of it, but then she sees it.

Where the Horn _should_ have been, there is only a note, held aloft. Waiting for her.

“Oh, I’m _definitely_ going to kill someone.” Eres is almost surprised the note doesn’t burst into flames with the force of the glare Serana directs at it. “We went through all that and the stupid Horn isn’t even _here_? I’m getting real tired of these wild goose chases.”

“You and me both,” Eres mutters, but she moves to grab the note all the same. It’s written in plain Alessian, with a scrawled, hasty hand, and the parchment is not old enough to have been here when the tomb was originally sealed. Whoever had left this note, it had been recent.

_“’Dragonborn,’”_ she reads aloud, for the sake of the other two, _“’I need to speak with you urgently. Rent the attic room at the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood, and I will meet you there. A friend.’”_

“You have other friends?” Inigo asks. “Why did you not just tell us you know someone who would be here?”

Despite herself, Eres smacks a hand to her forehead almost hard enough to echo in the cavernous room. “I don’t actually know who they are, Inigo.”

“Oh,” Inigo says. Then he frowns. “Then why did they leave you a note? How did they know you would be coming here? Anyone could have found this note if they had made it here before you.”

“That’s a good question,” Serana says, voice tight. She eyes the note with not a small amount of suspicion. “Who would have known that the Greybeards would send you here? And how would they know you would be the one to find this note, and not some random graverobber?”

“I imagine because they expected only the Dragonborn could make it through here.”

Serana quirks a brow at her. “Even _Inigo_ managed to find ways around some of those traps back there,” she says, as if Inigo is the lowest bar they could possibly have tripped over. “And obviously, whoever left you this note got through them too, and as far as I’m aware, there aren’t any other Dragonborns around that I know of. So somehow, this person made it through on their own as well. There was no guarantee it’d be you who found it.”

Eres stuffs the note in her pocket. Part of her is irritated, having wasted so much effort making it down here only to end up empty handed. The other part of her, the part deeper inside of her, sinks low with an all-too-familiar feeling. Guilt, gnawing at her insides. If she’d been _faster_ , she thinks, maybe she would have made it to the Horn before this person ever got the idea to make off with it and leave this note in its place. If she’d just come here when the Greybeards asked her to, maybe they wouldn’t be in this situation now.

All that said, the largest part of her is curious. Who would have gone through so much trouble in these old ruins just to leave a note on the hopes that the Dragonborn would be the one to find it, _and_ that said Dragonborn would actually do what the note said? Like Serana had said, there are certainly ways to get around all of the traps in these ruins. Anyone could have found that note. So who would have been optimistic enough that it would be her? Who would have been assured enough that it would be her?

More importantly, how did they even know Eres would be coming here in the first place?

“I think we should go,” Eres says at last, breaking the contemplative silence. “Find out who this is from, I mean.”

Serana’s expression does not change overmuch, but there is a flicker of something like uncertainty in her eyes. “Are you sure about that?” She asks. “We don’t know who left that for you here. They could be dangerous.”

“They could be,” Eres agrees easily, “but then why ask to meet at an inn? Especially the one in Riverwood? It’s close enough to Whiterun that there are plenty of patrols in those parts. If they wanted to do something dastardly, don’t you think they would have chosen somewhere a bit more remote? The Reach would be a better fit for something like that.”

“Possibly…” Serana says, though she doesn’t quite sound convinced on that front. “Either way, you’re not meeting with them alone. We’ll go to Riverwood, but I’m going to be staying in that room with you.” Inigo, inspecting a vase on the other side of the room, snorts. Serana’s eyes cut to him, flashing dangerously. “I’m going to _kill him_ ,” she hisses, more to Eres than Inigo himself.

“Stop threatening my friends.”

“Stop making such stupid friends and maybe I will.”

Eres laughs to herself, perhaps more amused than she should be. Had it been anyone else threatening Inigo’s life, she might have been concerned. With it being Serana, she’s not concerned in the slightest. Especially since the only reason Serana seems to want to kill him is that Inigo thinks Serana and Eres’ budding—relationship?—is _hilarious_. Eres had been embarrassed the first few times he’d made an offhand comment here or there. After the fourth or fifth time, his comments had started to roll right off her, and she’d even thrown a few of her own right back at him. Inigo knew his comments didn’t bother _Eres_ , but they certainly seemed to get under Serana’s skin well enough. And Inigo enjoyed riling her up.

Perhaps one day, Inigo may go too far with his teasing, but for the time being, he is in no immediate danger. And Eres is mostly convinced of her ability to calm Serana’s ire, if it comes down to it. She’s learned, in the past week or so, that Serana reacts well to her touch—not that she’s tried anything untoward, mind you, but a hand on her arm, or a squeeze of her hand, and Eres can calm even Serana’s white-hot temper to something more manageable. She seems to calm when Eres touches her, in much the same way that Eres feels in the opposite. Serana’s touch has the same effect on her, and she’s glad to see that it’s mutual. Now, if only she had some time alone with her to see just how _much_ was mutual, of course…

Eres hums an idle tune under her breath as she collects a couple of silver Haralds she sees lying around the crypt - the dead aren’t using them, after all, and if they’re going to Riverwood, she happens to know Lucan will buy just about everything under the sun if he thinks he might be able to sell it to someone, and Eres knows for a fact that there are strange old men out there that just love antique coins like these. Even her father had been a collector—well. He hadn’t had much of a collection before he’d sold it off, but he had started one. Briefly. Lucan should give her a fair price, too, given how she helped him with the Claw so long ago—and she’ll need as much help as she can get to get Fellburg back in order.

“To Riverwood, then,” Eres says, when she’s satisfied.

Serana meets her eyes, and makes a show of letting out a long suffering sigh. “To Riverwood,” she drawls, with a certain air of exasperation. “Maybe we’ll come across some bandits on the roads.”

Inigo nods sagely. “You _do_ seem a bit cranky today. Inigo does not make a good snack, I assure you.”

Serana curls her lip at him. “As if I would stoop that low,” she says, her voice the very definition of disdain. “I’d rather have Falmer than you.”

Inigo stares after her as she moves ahead of them. After a moment, he looks at Eres, frowning, his brows furrowed over confused amber eyes. “Inigo is getting the feeling that was an insult,” he says.

Eres smirks, and pats his shoulder as she moves past. “It was.”

It is not the first time Eres has been to the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood. In fact, it is not even the first time she has stayed there. She remembers, what feels like eons ago, staying a night or two here when she had tracked down that golden claw for Lucan at the Trader’s—back before she had become a Vigilant, and had still been taking odd jobs wherever she could find them to support Fellburg’s construction. She has passed by Riverwood since, but not stayed in it, and her impression of it now is that same as it has always been:

Riverwood is a sleepy little town, with next to nothing of note within it. It is so small, in fact, that even Fellburg eclipses it twice over—or, it would have, before the dragon attacked and burned near everything to the ground. Even so, if she hazarded a guess, Eres would suppose almost the entire town of Riverwood could have fit within the Keep’s bailey. And the bailey wasn’t even that large.

The Sleeping Giant Inn is no more impressive than the rest of the town, boasting a grand total of three rooms for travelers looking to stay the night, and a sizable floor space for overflow. Eres knows this, because the last time she had come here, all three of those rooms had been taken, and she had been forced to settle with sleeping upon one of the rugs at one end of the front room - for a reduced price, of course. It hadn’t been terribly uncomfortable, all things considered. It is a homey, cozy looking place, and there is certainly nothing about it to suggest it would be a clandestine meeting place.

That is, until Eres looks up. “No attic,” she notes, as her eyes flit across the ceiling, noting the rafters and utter lack of any notable area where one might have hidden a second floor. She’d _thought_ she remembered that correctly, but she hadn’t been entirely sure.

“Ahhh,” Inigo purrs, looking pleased. “A secret code,” he says, of the message’s instructions. “Only someone who found the note would ask for an attic room, if there is no attic room to speak of, yes?”

“However did you guess that one?” Serana asks, her tone bone-dry, with a roll of her eyes.

Eres glances between them—Inigo seems wholly unaffected by her admittedly more biting-than-usual sarcasm, but there is a part of her that worries they will always be this catty. Or, rather, Inigo would always find it entertaining to needle her, and so Serana would continue being snappish and cold. Eres could certainly live with it, but she does wish they would get along a bit better. Perhaps she can have a talk with Inigo when next Serana leaves to hunt…

“I’ll go talk to the innkeeper.” Eres gives the two of them a final parting glance, but Serana does not seem ready to call magic into her hands, so that is a plus, at least. She doesn’t think Serana will _actually_ attack Inigo, really, but she wouldn’t put it past Serana to fire a warning shot if he kept it up. Serana’s patience is wearing quite thin with him, and Eres knows it. Serana doesn’t mind so much when Eres teases her, but Inigo is a different story altogether.

“Can I help you?” An older, blonde woman turns to her as she approaches the bar. There is a rugged scar across one of her cheeks, like her face had been raked by some kind of jagged weapon or claw. It contrasted sharply with the rest of her appearance, the very image of a common innkeeper, and Eres’ eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

_It could be anything_ , she tells herself, willing her tendency to err on the side of suspicion to rest, for just a day. Plenty of people had scars for plenty of reasons. She certainly had her own fair share of them. Didn’t mean anything.

It didn’t mean anything.

“I’d like to rent the attic room,” Eres says, in answer, and the innkeeper’s brows quirk upward, eyes flashing with recognition, and Eres watches as the woman straightens, as it seems as though her very spine lengthens, making her appear taller, fitter, her shoulders broader beneath her common dress.

“The attic room, eh?” The woman says slowly, looking her over. She glances over Eres’ shoulder, towards where Inigo and Serana have remained. “For you and your friends, I imagine?”

“That’s right,” she says, nodding at her. Were she not watching the woman as close as she is, she might have missed the flicker of curiosity that passes over the woman’s face.

“I see,” says the woman, and she nods, stepping out from behind the counter to meet Eres beside it. “Follow me,” she says, and tilts her head in the direction of the others, indicating for them to join as well. “We don’t have an attic room,” says the innkeeper, to absolutely no one’s surprise, “but I know why you’re here. Come with me.”

The woman leads them into one of the larger rooms - unoccupied, at this moment, and opens a nondescript wardrobe door. Serana glances at Eres, questioningly, but then the woman pushes aside the dresses stacked within the wardrobe and with a subtle _click!_ And the sound of polished wood sliding against polished wood, the back panel of the wardrobe pushes inward, into where the wall should be - and then parts right down the middle and splits open like a gate, revealing a dark corridor just behind it leading downward into a small, hidden room.

“Well,” Inigo says, blinking, “that is a creative use of a wardrobe.”

The woman does not respond to him, only beckons for them to head into the dark corridor ahead of her.

Eres hesitates. “I don’t generally make a habit of following strangers into dark corridors.”

“It’s three against one,” the woman says shrewdly. “If I’ve anything against you, you have the advantage here.”

“Not to mention…” Serana says, and though she does not finish her sentence, Eres knows what she would have said: _Not to mention you have a vampire on your side._ Not that this woman knows that—Serana has always made sure to disguise herself in populated places such as these.

Eres lets out a long breath. “Fine,” she says, though she’s not remotely happy about it. “But if you try anything…” The woman merely raises a brow at her, nonplussed, and again gestures with a sweeping arm motion ahead of her. _Go right ahead_ , it seems to say, and Eres hates her a little bit for it. Somehow, the woman had managed to make a gesture look sarcastic. She’d thought only Serana was capable of that.

Only once all three of them have descended into the dark corridor does Delphine follow after them, closing the panel behind her. The already dark corridor darkens further, lacking the light from the room beyond, and there is only the point of light ahead of them from the room at the bottom of the corridor’s staircase. Eres hears Serana’s dubious hum under her breath, a sound Eres knows Serana to make when she senses something isn’t quite right about their surroundings.

On edge, Eres has no idea what she expects to find at the bottom of the stairs in that room - a torture chamber? Who knew what could be down there?

But then, in short order, they arrive at the bottom of the stairs, and the room beyond is—just a room. There is a large table oriented in the center of it with a map thrown across its surface, held down with weights on each corner. On that map there are several items marking the positions of things Eres cannot guess at. On one wall she sees a weapon rack, on another, several mannequins fitted with armor, several small chests filled with clutter, at least one of which appearing to be daggers and throwing knives and other such weapons, stacked haphazardly into a chaotic pile within. If Eres had doubted it before, she certainly did not do so now: this innkeeper was _not_ what she claimed to be.

“So,” the innkeeper says, when the three of them have cleared the entrance so that she might pass them, crossing in front of them to the wartable ahead. She walks with purpose now, straight-backed and soldier-stiff, and whatever vapid pleasantries she might have offered as an innkeeper are nowhere to be seen. “You’re the one who found my note, I take it.” Her eyes glide over each of them in turn, and, unexpectedly, settle upon Serana. “The Greybeards seem to think you’re the Dragonborn,” she says—to _Serana_ rather than Eres, “is that true?”

Serana crosses her arms, looking even less pleased than Eres feels. “You’re looking at the wrong person.” Serana says. “I’m _not_ Dragonborn. She is.”

Eres crosses her own arms, meeting the woman’s dubious expression with an almost careless shrug. “I assume you were expecting a Nord,” she says flatly.

“You… assume correctly,” the innkeep straightens, eying her critically. “How is it an elf came to be Dragonborn?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Akatosh?” Eres retorts, already annoyed. _This_ is why she had never told anyone. She had known that no one would believe her. “My father was a Nord, if you must know. If that’ll satisfy you.”

“Huh,” the woman says, and she looks even less convinced than she had when she’d thought that Serana was Dragonborn. “You’ll forgive me if I find that… hard to believe.”

“You’ll forgive _me_ ,” Eres says, cross, “if I don’t give a shit what you find hard to believe. I’m here for the Horn. Hand it over.”

“Now, hold on,” the woman says. “I’m not handing anything over until you prove who you are to me.” Eres’ scowl deepens. “And I would’ve asked the same of your friend over there, had she been the Dragonborn, so don’t look at me like I pissed in your breakfast oats. Allow me to explain.”

“I’d make it quick if I were you,” Serana tells her coldly, a certain glimmer to her green eyes that spoke volumes of just how much she already disliked this woman. “ _My_ patience is a lot shorter than hers is.”

The woman pauses. Looks at her, eyes narrowing. “Is that a threat?”

“I wouldn’t,” Eres cuts in, before Serana can answer, before the tension between them can explode into something more violent. “Just tell us what the hell you want already.”

The woman eyes Serana a moment longer. Then her eyes widen. “Vampire,” she says.

Serana shrugs when Eres looks at her. “Figured there’s no point in hiding it,” she says to Eres. Her eyes seem a bit brighter than usual, bright with her irritation. “As I said,” she says, looking back to Delphine, “I don’t have a lot of patience. Get to the point.”

“Awful strange company you keep, Dragonborn.”

“The _Horn_ ,” Eres repeats.

The woman shakes her head. “This is the furthest from what I had expected…” With a sigh, she says, “Very well. Let us get the pleasantries out of the way. My name is Delphine. And you are…?”

“Eres,” she says shortly. “This is Serana, and Inigo.” Inigo waves, though even he doesn’t look cheerful for once. Serana only glares at the woman. “Now what do you want? Why did you take the Horn?”

“More importantly, how did you know we’d come looking for it?”

“I’m… _familiar_ ,” Delphine says, her lip curling, “with the Greybeards.” By her tone of voice, her opinion of them is quite clear. For whatever reason, Delphine and the Greybeards do not appear to get along. Eres makes a note of this, wondering why that might be. “I knew, when they summoned the Dragonborn from High Hrothgar, that they would send them—or rather, _you_ ,” she says, looking at her, “to retrieve the Horn as a test of your ability. I imagine once you returned to them, they formally recognized you as Dragonborn, did they not?”

Eres shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen them yet.” When Delphine frowns, she explains, “They asked me to go to Ustengrav months ago. I had other things to handle at the time, so,” she shrugs again. “I came straight here after we left the tomb.”

“I see.” Delphine nods, a contemplative look settling upon her face. “And you believe you are indeed the Dragonborn?”

“Fairly certain,” Eres deadpans. “Kind of hard to miss.”

“Hmm,” Delphine says. “We shall see about that. I want to see you in action.” Eres’ brow furrows with confusion. Action?

“What, you want me to Shout? Here?” She asks, looking around the room. There isn’t much within it that she thinks she could damage _that_ badly, but it would certainly be heard by everyone upstairs. “That would sort of defeat the purpose of the secret hideout you have here.”

“That’s not _quite_ what I had in mind.” A slow smile spreads over Delphine’s lips. She turns, crossing the room, and opens a small strongbox upon a shelf placed against the far wall. When she returns to the table, it is with the Horn in hand. The horn which she hands, without ceremony, to Eres. “There,” she says. “Let us start off on the right foot here. There’s the Horn you wanted.”

Eres considers turning to leave right then. She has what she needs. She could take the Horn and go right back to High Hrothgar with this, and never see Delphine again. But she knows that there must be a reason why Delphine had gone through so much trouble to draw her here, and she needs to know why.

“Why go through all of this if you were going to just give it to me anyways?” Eres asks her, suspicious. “What was the point?”

“The point,” Delphine says, “is that I needed to meet with you. I’m actually trying to help you, if you’d only hear me out.” Eres’ frown only deepens. “I understand your distrust in me—I would be the same way. But I had to make sure the Thalmor didn’t have their hands in this. Can never be too careful.”

“What do the Thalmor have do with anything?” Eres hears Serana mutter, but Delphine doesn’t answer her.

“I am part of a group that’s been looking for you—or someone like you,” Delphine amends, “for a very long time. Before I tell you anything more, I need to make sure I can trust you.”

At that, Eres almost scoffs aloud. “And how do I know I can trust _you_?” She retorts.

Delphine actually sneers at her. “If you didn’t think you could trust me, then you were a fool to walk in here in the first place.”

“Am I?” Eres counters her, unfazed. “I’m the Dragonborn. Serana is one of the most powerful vampires in Skyrim,” she says. “If she wanted to, she could snap your neck before you so much as blinked.” As if to aid her, Serana sends Delphine a sharp, cold smile, as if to say, _Yes, I could, and I’d do it gladly._ “I don’t know who you are or what group you’re working for. But if you think you, alone, could take both me _and_ her,” she says, “then you’re more of an idiot than I gave you credit for.”

For a long moment, Delphine simply stares back at her, unmoving, eyes dark—and for a moment, Eres wonders if the woman is actually stupid enough to make a move against them.

Then, surprising them all, Delphine laughs.

“Oh,” she says, grinning to herself. “You’re _good.”_ Somehow, she seems actually _pleased_ by the turn in the conversation. “Good to know you’re not some icebrain without a spine.”

“Happy to meet your qualifications,” Eres drawls. “Are you going to get to the point?”

“I’m getting there,” Delphine says, sobering. “I knew the Greybeards would send you to Ustengrav if they thought you were the Dragonborn. That’s why I left the note - so I could tell that you were indeed the Dragonborn, and not some Thalmor plant.”

“What does the Thalmor have to do with all of this?” Eres asks, echoing Serana from earlier. If Delphine won’t answer _her_ , maybe she’d answer Eres. “You keep mentioning them.”

“The Thalmor have their hands in just about everything you can think of,” Delphine responds. “And we happen to be old enemies. And, if my suspicions are correct - I believe they may have something to do with the dragons returning.”

Consider her interest piqued - dubiously, that is. “Right… And just how would the Thalmor have a hand in that?”

“We’ll get to that.” Delphine says, deflecting the question yet again. Eres’ eyes narrow. Whenever Eres tries to ask after the Thalmor, Delphine finds a way to redirect to something else. Eres isn’t stupid - she knows there’s something to do with them that Delphine is trying to hide. “But first, there’s something else I need to know from you. We remember what most don’t—” There was that _‘we’_ again. Who exactly is Delphine referring to? Who else is she working with? “That the Dragonborn is the ultimate dragonslayer. That _you_ are the only person who can defeat a dragon permanently. Kill them, for good. By devouring their soul. Is that true?” Delphine asks her. “Can you do it? Have you done it before?”

“It’s how I found out I was Dragonborn,” Eres says, and she cannot help but glance to Serana. The frozen lake in the Forgotten Vale somehow seems like it was decades ago, now, rather than mere months. “I’ve done it before.”

“So you’ve killed a dragon before.”

“Two,” Eres corrects her. Three, if you counted Durnehviir. Four if you counted Molag Bal’s dragon form back under the Beacon. Five, if you counted Kahkaankrein, though he’d technically already been dead. Eventually, she’s going to lose count at this rate. “I have.”

“Good,” Delphine says. “We’ll have a chance to test that out soon enough.”

“What, you happen to have a dragon in the backyard for this very occasion?” Eres asks.

“Very funny.” Delphine does not look amused. “I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been going on with these dragons since the attack on Helgen. At first, it seemed like a one-off—Helgen might have been destroyed, but even though there were rumors of dragons flying overhead, it didn’t attack again for some time. Then,” Delphine gestures down at the map spread across the table, pointing at several areas she had marked with short sticks of charcoal.

“Over time, there were rumors of smaller, isolated attacks all over the country. Here, just on the other side of Bleakfalls Barrow, there seemed to be some kind of feeding ground. Same thing here, near Whiterun.” Delphine points to another. “There was a house and family burned to ash here, up in the mountains,” and another. “Smaller attacks. Things I might not have ever learned about if I wasn’t looking out for them specifically.”

“So you’ve been tracking this dragon’s movement?”

“Not _this_ dragon,” Delphine insists, “ _multiple_ dragons. This isn’t just a dragon or two suddenly reemerging out of nowhere. Something, somewhere, is out there, bringing the dragons _back_.”

“Wait, like back from the _dead_?” Inigo asks, plainly horrified by the concept. He turns to Eres, looking almost betrayed. “You did not tell me these were undead dragons.”

Eres frowns. “Because they weren’t.” She says, and her frown deepens further, her brow furrowing. “The dragons I fought—the dragons I’ve seen have all been alive. Not undead.”

“Right,” Delphine says. “Because they’re being brought back to life.”

Serana’s mouth twists. “That’s not actually how necromancy works, you know,” she says, and Delphine cuts a glance in her direction.

“And I suppose you would know?”

“Yes, actually, I would. And I know for a fact that necromancy—no matter how powerful the mage, has never been reported to bring something back _to life_ ,” she says. “It’s reanimation, _not_ resurrection, and it isn’t indefinite. If these dragons were being raised, their time would eventually run out. They’d take care of themselves.”

“And yet,” Delphine says. “I know that they’re being brought back. And I can prove it.”

“Really.” Serana doesn’t look convinced. “Where’s your proof of any of this, exactly?”

“Kynesgrove.”

Eres’ heart stutters in her chest. She manages to keep her expression neutral, but she doesn’t miss the searching look Serana sends her—she had heard that. “What’s in Kynesgrove?” Eres asks, keeping her voice carefully level.

_Don’t think about it,_ she tells herself. _Don’t think about him._

“If I’m right,” Delphine says, and she is smiling again, all too smugly, “Kynesgrove is where the next dragon will be awakening. And we’re going to meet him there when he does.”

“Kynesgrove,” Eres repeats, and she nods, and she decidedly does _not_ think of Balor. She does not think of the innocent man she’d killed in cold blood on those very streets. She does not think of the Eye of Madness, and its dark promise. She does not think of Altano. Most importantly, she does not think of the way Serana is looking at her. Watching her. Reading her.

“That is a long way from here,” Inigo murmurs, frowning down at the map. “Will we make it in time?”

“We have time, thankfully,” Delphine says. “If my calculations are right, it should be somewhere around the 16th, give or take a day or two.”

“A week from now.”

“Three days on the shorter end,” Delphine replies. “That gives us just enough time to get there for his resurrection.”

“Reanimation,” Serana corrects, almost absently. Her eyes are still on Eres. Eres still does not look at her.

“So you say. But we won’t know until we see it,” Delphine says. “So, you can either meet me there, or we can travel together. Which will it be?”

Eres swallows. She will not think about it. Kynesgrove is just a town. Nothing more. “That depends on when we’re leaving.”

“How about now?”


	2. Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna wait to post this but well. i am dying

Kynesgrove.

In and of itself, Kynesgrove was not a memorable village. There is very little of note about it. It is a quaint mining village, and little else besides. Had Kynesgrove only been _Kynesgrove_ , Eres might have forgotten the place entirely. She had only been there twice, after all.

But Kynesgrove was not _just_ Kynesgrove.

Kynesgrove is the very same village she had murdered a man in cold blood. A man she knew to be innocent. She had _questioned_ those orders, and yet she had still done it. She had still killed him. She had still sunk her blade between his ribs, watched as the light faded from his eyes. She had felt the warmth of his blood as it flowed over her fingertips, pressed against his body. The slowing of his breath. The way he’d _hated_ her, in his last moments. He hadn’t begged. He hadn’t had the time to - she’d killed him before he had the chance.

She has seen him twice since, once as a spirit within the depths of Stendarr’s Beacon. Once in—Eres’ brows furrow. Coldharbour. She’d met him in Coldharbour. She remembers it now—just bits and pieces of it, really, but she remembers—she remembers him laughing at her. She remembers his vindication at realizing she had ended up in the same place he had. His satisfaction—and yet, even then, months after his death, his anger. His hatred for her. And how could she blame him? She had brought him his end. All for a man who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Thinking of him makes her think of worse things. Things she has tried not to think about if she can help it. Things she doesn’t want to consider as possibilities, things she _can_ _’t_ consider as possibilities.

Like the Eye of Madness. And how he’d used it on her, right before he died, just to hurt her. The flashing in her eyes, the disorientation, the—the fucking _spirits_ in Stendarr’s Beacon, all of them with something to say to her. Everything she’d seen and heard and dealt with in Bruiant Mansion. Coldharbour. Even—even Serana, really, if she thinks about it.

Is there any guarantee that any of this is real? Couldn’t all of this just be the effect of the Eye? Some insane hallucination she can’t break out of? Who was to say she was even alive? Who was to say she was even conscious, or standing here, right now? She could be — she could be dead, for all she knew. Or she could be in some asylum, somewhere. Or bedridden. Haunted by a world that doesn’t exist. Experiencing a lifetime within the blink of an eye. All of this could be nothing. It could just be her mind, splintered and fractured at the edges, utterly destroyed by the Eye — and she would be none the wiser.

How could she know?

Eres swallows. She pushes the thoughts back, back to the depths of her mind. Back to the dark corners where they’ll never see the light of day. It’s not true. She’s here. She’s alive. She has Serana, and Inigo, and she is the Dragonborn, and she is here to fight a dragon and—and the more she thinks about it, the more insane _reality_ seemed compared to the alternative. What else could this be _but_ a dream? Her, the Dragonborn? Defeating a god? Being sent to Coldharbour and making it out again, mostly unscathed? How could anyone believe that?

How could she _know_?

“Eres.”

A hand closes around her arm, tugging at her until Eres takes two steps backwards, away from Inigo, away from Delphine - until Serana is next to her, looking down at her with concern plain in her eyes. Eres looks back at her, and she tries to focus her mind upon the things she can see and feel and hear. The real things. Like the way the deep black of Serana’s hair reflects almost blue-black in the dappled lighting of dusk and reflections of moon against snow. Like the way her eyes look so much softer when she’s looking at Eres. Like the cut of her jaw, the bow of her lips, the slender fingers wrapped around her upper arm. The press of them, the gentle, but insistent pressure. Her voice.

“ _Eres_ ,” Serana says again, sharper this time, delicate dark brows creasing together—and Eres blinks.

Serana had been saying something, she’s sure of it. She just hadn’t heard a word of it. “Sorry,” Eres says, and she shakes her head, wishing it were that easy to clear her mind. “What did you say?”

Serana’s brow only furrows further, her lips pressing into a thin line. She looks down at Eres searchingly, eyes too-sharp and too-intelligent and too—too _knowing_. “You went somewhere,” she says, quietly so that even the crisp night air can’t carry her voice far enough for the others to hear. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I—” Eres almost says, _I_ _’m fine_. She almost says, _Of course I am. Why wouldn_ _’t I be fine?_ She almost says, _It_ _’s nothing_.

But she’s not fine, there are plenty of reasons why she wouldn’t be, and it is most certainly not nothing.

More than that, Eres has lied to Serana enough, before. Hadn’t they just argued over that just the other day? How could Eres turn around then, and lie right to her face?

Eres knows that she can’t.

And so she doesn’t.

“I was—” Eres inhales. The air is cold with the wind that comes down from the mountains on high, with just the slightest hint of brine from the Sea of Ghosts just north of where they stand. But beneath that, she swears she can smell blood. “I remembered something,” she says finally, because she can think of no better way to phrase it.

“From Coldharbour?”

“No,” Eres almost wishes it had been. At least then, she’d had an excuse for her actions. They hadn’t been entirely her own. Balor—that had been her. No two ways around it. “From before.” When Serana frowns at her, she adds, “From Altano.”

The grip on her arm turns into less of a grasp and more of a caress. Serana’s concern only seems to grow. “That was the man who recruited you, right?”

Eres nods. She looks ahead of them - Delphine has, seemingly, accosted a random miner to interrogate. Inigo has settled himself somewhere halfway between them and Delphine, and looks quite content to simply watch the woman overpower the man with sheer force of personality alone. Or, perhaps, he was simply giving them privacy, in his own, roundabout kind of way.

She hadn’t told Inigo this, either. Serana, she’d told even less.

“It was,” Eres starts, haltingly. Her hand feels numb. She clenches, and unclenches, and clenches it again. It tingles in the cold air. “This was where I killed Balor.”

“Balor…?”

“He was innocent.” Eres does not look at her, now, because she doesn’t want to see judgment. Or pity. Or, just—just Serana’s caring, in general. In this moment, she doesn’t feel like she deserves it. “I knew he was innocent. Altano had me come here to investigate a man who had come across a Daedric artifact - the Eye of Madness,” she explains. “He’d been attacked by the summoner we were chasing. His eye was gouged out, and she replaced it with the Eye. Anyone he looked at was reported to have gone mad.”

“Neat party trick,” Serana remarks dryly, and Eres is so surprised by her sudden dark humor that she very nearly laughs, herself. Eres settles for flashing the woman a quick smile, shaking her head. She cannot bring herself to laugh, right now, but she can at least appreciate the effort.

“By the time I’d gotten here, he’d taken to wearing a bandage to cover it. Said he never planned on using it.” Eres shakes her head again, remembering his insistence. His confidence in his ability to control it. “I went back to Altano and told him everything I’d learned. And he told me to kill him.”

“That… seems a bit excessive.”

“That’s what I thought, but,” Eres wishes she could go back in time. She wishes she could go back to that moment and slap some sense into her younger self. How had she let Altano convince her of his guilt so easily? How had he spun it around to make murder somehow sound justified, the way he did? “He said it couldn’t be helped. That Balor would lose control of it eventually, and then who knew how many people would be hurt by it. He made it sound like—like killing Balor was the lesser of two evils. Like letting him live would have been worse than killing him, because of the consequences.”

“He was a manipulator, Eres. You said that yourself.” Serana tells her. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”

She can, and she does. But that’s not why she’s out of sorts. “It’s just that,” she looks at Serana, and she’s not even sure how to put it into words that make sense. “Before he died, he looked at me. And I saw something. Flashes—flashes of light and, just—It was strange,” she says. “Everyone else who he’d looked at with that Eye had gone made, but yet—it seemed to have no effect on me. I just, I just took the Eye and brought it back to Altano. Like it was nothing. And being here again just reminded me of—” she shakes her head. “It just reminded me that I can’t really be sure of it.”

“Can’t really be sure of what?”

“I can’t really be sure any of this is real.” Eres admits, and she tries to shrug, but it doesn’t come out quite right. Not quite casual. A little too stiff. “I could be hallucinating, for all I know.”

“That’s ridiculous, Eres.” Serana cuts no corners. “I guarantee you, I’m as real as it gets.”

Eres shrugs. “The mind can do incredible things. I once heard of a soldier who had a head wound—he was knocked unconscious, and he dreamed an entire life for himself. A wife, kids, a house—the whole nine. Ten years worth of a life. And then one day, he noticed something wasn’t quite right. And he woke up.” She shrugs again. “None of it had been real. It had just been his mind, coping with his injury. That could happen to me.”

“That could happen to anyone,” Serana says. “Doesn’t mean it will happen to you. And,” she adds, “there’s no proof even _that_ story is real. It’s probably a myth.” When Eres merely sighs, Serana scowls down at her. “You’re not crazy, Eres.”

“I know,” Eres says. And the thing is, she _does_ know. Sort of. She _knows_ this is real. But there will always be that doubt, in the back of her mind. That _what if?_ It will drive her mad if she thinks about it too much. Perhaps that’s how all of those other people had been driven mad. “I just get—” Honest. _Honesty_ , _Eres_ , she tells herself. Serana deserves that. “I get trapped in my thoughts, sometimes. It’s hard to get out of them again.”

She _knows_ this is real. She knows that. But now that it’s on her mind again, it feels like her brain is incapable of thinking about anything else.

“That’s alright,” Serana says, and her voice is soft again. Her eyes are soft again. “You don’t have to do it alone. That’s what I’m here for.”

“To keep me sane?” Eres wonders, half-joking.

“To keep you _here_ ,” Serana replies, and there is so much _more_ to that phrase that Eres can’t quite put a name to. “With me.”

Eres nods, almost more to herself than Serana. If there is anyone who can keep her grounded, it would be her. Serana had gotten her through Coldharbour. Serana could get her through this, too.

“I’m here, now,” Eres says, and that, too, has its own meaning. But Serana only nods, rubs her back briefly.

“Good. We have a dragon to catch, and I’m not too keen on fighting one _without_ the Dragonborn.”

“I’m sure you could handle it.”

Three hours later finds them coated in fresh snowfall behind an outcropping of rocks overlooking the burial ground just near Kynesgrove. When it had first started snowing, Eres had brushed the snow off herself, trying to keep warm. By the second hour of consistent snowfall, she had given up. By the third hour, she was not entirely convinced she wasn’t just going to blend in with the landscape at some point. If she doesn’t die of hypothermia first.

“How long are we going to wait out here?” Eres asks, and she manages to stop her voice from shivering along with her body. Serana sits near her, but being what she is, she offers little in terms of body heat, and though Eres thinks Serana could manage a warming spell, it wouldn’t be long before that drained her entirely. She _had_ dressed warmly, too—or, what would be considered warmly, when one does not sit outside in a _snowstorm_ for several hours. What little warmth she has is sapped away by the snow that covers what feels like every inch of her, and all she can think of is the inn. She’s so damned cold she doesn’t even care about Balor anymore, in that moment. All she wants is a nice fire, and a blanket, and maybe a cup of hot cocoa.

“As long as it takes,” Delphine barks back at her. The woman has hardly moved an inch since they had started this watch—had remained braced on one knee, peering out over the rocks to see anything that might approach the burial mound. She doesn’t even look cold. Goddamn Nords and their goddamned immunity to cold weather.

“Eres is going to freeze at this rate,” Serana bites back at her, “and she’s not going to do you much good as Dragonborn if she’s too cold to even fight the damn thing.” Serana pauses, then adds, “Assuming, of course, that you’re not full of shit, and this dragon is going to come in the first place.”

“I’m sure you can think of a way to warm her up,” Delphine drawls, uncaringly.

Serana’s eyes flash dangerously. “I’ll warm _you_ up,” she mutters to herself, and Eres snorts.

“Don’t set her on fire.”

“No?” Serana glances at Delphine, makes a face. “She might make good tinder, if I try hard enough.”

“She’d smell awful,” is what Eres says, rather than debate the morality of setting a woman on fire for warmth. Serana sighs dramatically, plainly disappointed.

“If you say so,” she says. “But you can’t stay out here much longer like this.” Serana’s hand comes to her cheek, presses there. Eres holds herself very still as that hand drops to her neck, to the junction of her shoulder, soft skin pressing into the collar of her tunic. Despite the intimacy of her touch, Serana doesn’t look pleased. On the contrary, she looks bothered - her brows furrowed deeply over shadowed eyes, her lips pinched tightly together. “You’re not as hot as you normally are.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I meant _temperature_ , idiot.”

Eres makes to respond - to joke, to lighten the mood, to entertain herself as little she can in this freezing weather, but it is at that moment that she feels its pull. She could not have described the feeling if her life had depended on it—a tugging, somewhere, a pull deep inside, a sense somewhere beyond herself, beyond this realm, even - it felt too much like what she had felt in the courtyard at the temple, that overwhelming sense of dread, of impending doom, of something _wrong_ on the horizon. Eres quiets, listening, _feeling_ —but beyond the howl of the biting wind she can hear almost nothing.

 _Almost_.

“There!” Delphine shouts to be heard, half rising from her crouch to point to the air above the burial mound, already drawing her sword from her side. “There he is!”

Eres looks, and her heart stops.

For a moment, the massive black shadow that can only be Alduin looks far too much like Molag Bal’s dragon form beneath the Beacon, all those months ago. For a moment, Eres almost expects to hear his voice rumbling between her ears, taunting her, riling her up, mocking her for thinking she could have escaped him. She can almost hear his laugh in her mind, and she swears, just for a moment, that she had seen the pincer-like horns on either side of Alduin’s too-black head as he hovered above. But then she blinks, and the horns are gone, and Alduin is all that remains. It is _Alduin_ _’s_ voice she hears, then, not Molag Bal’s.

 ** _“Sahloknir,”_** comes his booming, guttural voice, so much darker and deeper than Durnehviir’s, so much like Molag Bal’s. He speaks, and Eres hears him as clearly over the wind as if he had whispered into her ear.

“What is he saying?” Serana asks, just beside her, her voice low. “Can you understand him?”

It strikes Eres, then, suddenly, that Alduin had not spoken in Alessian. “He’s—” the ground shakes. Eres feels it in her bones, feels the ground tremble and the air still around them—and then at once it seems to expand, exploding outward, sucking the very breath from her lungs, swallowing the words from her mouth.

 ** _“Rise,”_** she hears him say. **_“Flesh unbound by time. Rise once more and claim your place by my side.”_**

The mound shifts. Rises. Expands. And then something massive bursts forth from it, tossing dirt and debris into the air, and there is a second dragon, there, one besides Alduin himself - smaller, leaner, but just as dangerous. Just as _alive_. He is not the strange, ever-rotting form of an undead dragon such as Durnehviir, but flesh and bone and as pristine as if he had never died at all.

 ** _“Alduin_** **,** **”** this one calls, breathing deep of the air around it, **_“my lord. Has time come to reclaim our realm?”_**

 ** _“Yes, Sahloknir, my trusted ally,”_** Alduin rumbles.

Eres feels eyes upon her - feels a heavy, weighing gaze. A gaze she could not have hidden from if she tried.

 ** _“Dovahkiin.”_** There is something of a smile in that voice, something of grim satisfaction, of mockery. **_“False Dragonborn. What form have you that you call yourself Dovah? I see nothing of dragon within you. Can you even speak our tongue?”_** Alduin does not wait for her to respond. Eres is not sure she could have, if he had. She is not even sure if she so much as _breathed_. **_“The arrogance of Man,”_** Alduin says darkly, **_“to dare take the name of Dovah.”_**

 ** _“Sahloknir,”_** Alduin commands, **_“Kill them, and you shall be rewarded.”_**

 ** _“As my lord commands.”_** Sahloknir beats great, heavy wings, lifting himself several hundred feet into the air - and his giant head swivels to look at them, to look at Eres, behind their cover. They are not hidden. Perhaps they never truly had been.

Distantly, Eres hears the sound of a ringing bell upon the wind.

“Here we go,” Serana says, from beside her, and then she is out from behind that rock, frost already forming around her hands.

It is the sight of Serana moving out from behind cover that snaps Eres out of her—shock, is it? Trance? What could one even call such a thing? But she is reaching for her bow, nocking an arrow, and the words are leaving her mouth before her mind even registers them:

“Aim for the wings!” She shouts, over the howling wind, as if she has fought a dragon before without Durnehviir and knows how to bring them down. As if she has been in this situation before. But it is the only way she can think of that they might be able to bring him down, that they might be able to fight him on somewhat even ground - what could her arrows do from here? What could Delphine’s sword do, from hundreds of feet below him? They needed to get him on the _ground_ , where they might be able to fight him properly—they have no other choice. She can hardly call upon Durnehviir _this_ close to civilization. The guards might help them kill this Sahloknir, but then they’d turn around and kill Durnehviir right after. She wasn’t going to put him in danger just for the sake of making the battle a little easier. “Serana!”

She doesn’t have to say it. Doesn’t have to spell it out. Serana knows her, knows how she fights, knows how she thinks. “Already on it!” Serana replies, because she _knows._ Because Eres doesn’t have to lay it out in the open for her. Serana calls the ice to form in her hands, far easier in this storm than it would have been any other time, and she hurls spear after spear of ice into the air, aiming to tear holes into Sahloknir’s leathery wings.

Just _one_ , Eres thinks, and somewhere in the back of her mind, maybe she registers the shouting. But she can only see the dragon, can only hear its taunting, the beat of its wings upon the air, the sharp whistle as it rears back—Eres ducks behind cover, gesturing for the others to do the same, and there is the blast of ice, of something _colder_ than ice against the outcropping she has ducked behind. Even with it taking the brunt of the dragon’s icy breath, her body aches with a bone-deep, frozen numbness. They need to do this _fast_ , before her mortality catches up with her. Her fingers have already cramped around her bow.

She can’t use a rune, here. It would take too much time. She can’t call Durnehviir, either, because she would just be putting him in danger, and what kind of gratitude would that show? Her bow and arrows are near useless - the arrows aren’t strong enough to pierce his scaly hide, and even if she aims for the wings, the airflow from his flight just tosses any that might get close—she would need enchanted arrows to fight him, or arrows specifically crafted to fly true despite all else—arrows she does not have, and has never even heard of outside of legend. And between _Fus_ and _Wuld_ —there are no _Thu_ _’um_ she knows that could even the odds.

She is, well and truly, completely outmatched.

Unless—

“Fuck,” Eres mutters. She knows what she has to do. And she’s not happy about it. She’ll be even less happy later, once they’ve gotten him down, but—for better or worse, it’s the only option she has.

Eres huddles low behind her cover, holds her bow in hand and places her other hand over her quiver. Under her breath, she utters a short prayer. This is going to _hurt_.

Eres calls the magic into her hands, draws her magicka to the very tips of her fingers, and draws it out, sends it spiraling around the length of her bow and down the shafts of the arrows within her quiver. The pain starts with the very first tendril, multiplies with each succeeding one, and several times the pain lances through her skull so sharply that she nearly loses focus, nearly loses hold of the spell altogether, nearly fucks herself _entirely_ , but she pushes, and pushes, and she does not stop even when her vision darkens, even when it turns red at the edges, even when her hearing turns muffled and distant and cloudy, even when her very blood seems to freeze inside her veins. _Just a little more_ , she tells herself, and she tells herself that until it is over, until she is done, until she opens her eyes and both her bow and arrows are blazing with magic in her vision—until it hurts to so much as look at them.

Eres turns, drawing her bow once more, and nearly stumbles, dropping to one knee. Well, if she can’t stand—

Eres draws her bow right there, then, leaning out from behind her cover, and she fires.

The arrow pierces the wind, emitting a sharp, high pitched whistle as it goes, and Eres sees Sahloknir turn, sees him beat his great wings to send the arrow off course almost carelessly—but this time the arrow does not falter, does not so much as shift or slow even when buffeted by the wind beaten from his wings, and Sahloknir drops, just a few meters, as the arrow rips through his wing.

 ** _“It’s to be a real fight, then?”_** Sahloknir roars into the air above, hoisting himself ever higher, **_“Good!”_**

 _Good, my ass,_ Eres thinks, and fires again. Her arms feel like jelly, loose and near-alien, seeming almost not to be attached to her body. She moves as if distantly, as if controlled by another, and somewhere in her mind she recognizes that this is probably not a good sign—but she has more important things to worry about, now. She fires another, and another, ripping three more holes into his wings in quick succession.

 ** _“You cannot hide from me!”_** Sahloknir dives toward her, jaw roaring open. **_“Hear my Voice and despair!”_**

Eres stands from her cover, pulls as much air into her lungs as she dares. _Hear **mine** , _she thinks, a moment before it explodes from her chest. **_“Fus RO!”_**

Sahlkonir tumbles, end over end, his attempts to right himself thwarted by the holes she and Serana both had ripped into his wings—and then he is, blessedly, upon the ground, and Delphine is running toward his felled form, blade in hand, and Shaloknir raises his head and roars his displeasure, and Eres—

 _Fuck Delphine_ , Eres thinks, and she fires her bow one last time, sending a piercing arrow right through the center of Sahloknir’s huge head. It buries itself to the fletching, and Sahloknir goes deathly still once more.

Delphine halts mid-step, looking over her shoulder towards her. “Well, hell,” she says, actually frowning. “You could’ve at least let me get a good blow in.” The corpse of the dragon begins to disintegrate just behind her, and Eres feels that familiar imbuing of energy inside her, somewhere deep, and she cannot even feel its call, its power. Her skull feels like it’s splitting open. Delphine’s brows crease, her frown deepening. “Didn’t realize you got hit,” Delphine says, stepping toward her. “We’ll have to get that looked at.”

 _Hit_? Eres frowns back at her. She hadn’t been. She’d—she’d hidden behind some bloody rocks like a coward until she figured out what to do. She hadn’t been hit at all. Unless you counted the dragon breath, but that had been more a nuisance than anything since she hadn’t been directly hit by it. She’s half to asking what the fuck Delphine is talking about when she sees Serana, staring at her like she might break. “ _What_?”

“You’re bleeding,” Serana says, quiet. Her eyes flit to something just behind Eres, and hastily she reaches a hand towards her eyes, and then they are green and not red, and Eres feels the eyes of many upon her back. Hears them, oohing and awwing behind her—wonderingly, reverently. Serana moves closer, until she can cup Eres’ cheeks and turn her head from one side to the other, looking for something that Eres isn’t aware of.

“What are you—”

“You’re _bleeding_ ,” Serana repeats. “What the hell did you _do_? He never touched you.”

“I had to make the arrows work somehow.” Eres reaches up, herself, brushing her fingers across her own cheeks, hunting for whatever blood Serana has spotted - she feels it, finds it beneath her nose, just in front of both of her ears. “Oh,” she says, dumbly. “That’s… probably not good.”

“You think?” Serana asks caustically. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

It doesn’t, actually, and Eres wonders if perhaps that’s more worrying than if it did. “It’s fine,” she says, waving her away, looking for Delphine—maybe _now_ this woman would believe her, now that she’s seen it with her own eyes.

It was not fine. It’s probably the very furthest from fine, but now isn’t the best time to worry about it. Eres wipes the blood away from her ears and nose with her sleeve, and when Serana nods —still with concern etched into her features—Eres turns to face them.

There are guards, behind her. Guards, and civilians—a few miners, a few women, a few gawking children. Where did they all come from? How hadn’t she heard them approach?

“Wait…” Says one of them, frowning. “You’re not a Nord.”

“Very observant of you.” Eres can’t help herself, though she sees his frown deepen further.

“But—we saw you,” the guard says, and he gestures to the other guards, who nod their agreement, each of them just as confused as the next. “We saw you—you absorbed some kind of power from that dragon. Like a Dragonborn. _The_ Dragonborn,” he says, and he looks at her with sharp, critical eyes. Measuring her worth. “How did you do it?” His tone turns accusatory, suddenly, and his hand tightens around the bow he carries in one hand. “What kind of magic is this? What kind of sorcery are you using to impersonate the Dragonborn, _elf_?” He says the word like a curse.

“I’m not _impersonating_ anyone,” Eres scowls at him. “I _am_ the Dragonborn.”

One of the guards scoff. Another actually laughs at her.

“Stupid elf,” one mutters. “An elf can’t be the Dragonborn. Dragonborn’s a Nord. They’ve always been _Nords._ _”_

“Want to test that theory?” Eres glares at the man, feeling enough anger building in her that she knows she could prove it to him if she wanted to. She’d like to Shout him into Oblivion itself, if she could. Maybe Ulfric wouldn’t be the only person who could shout a man apart. “Come here, and I’ll prove it to you. Give you a taste of what Ulfric gave the King.”

The man hesitates. “No need to get violent,” he says, as if he hadn’t provoked her in the first place. “But you can’t be the Dragonborn.”

“I _can_ ,” Eres says, “and I am. Now get out of my way. I just killed a fucking dragon, in case you didn’t notice.” They don’t move. In fact, they only stare at her, a few of them with a strange, calculating look in their eyes that Eres finds she doesn’t like in the slightest. It looks too much like men plotting their next move, like men about to do something they know they shouldn’t.

“Ulfric would want to meet you.” Says one of them, and he takes a step forward. “If you’re really the Dragonborn—”

“ _Fuck_ Ulfric—” is all Eres manages, but then Serana is stepping in front of her, hands blazing with magic begging to be released.

“ _Move_ ,” Serana orders them, and a few of them take several steps back without thinking. “Before I _make_ you move.”

The crowd disperses, though not without several murmured curses about mages and elves and impostors. When they are gone, Eres sighs, feeling the weight of their distrust and suspicion heavy upon her shoulders. If she’d been born a Nord, she would never have these problems. Not for the first time, Eres wishes she hadn’t been chosen by—by whoever it is that chooses the Dragonborn. She wishes they had just left her alone. How is she supposed to convince anyone she’s Dragonborn when they all react this way because of the way she looks?

A hand lands upon her shoulder, heavier and harder than Serana’s would have been. When she looks, it is Delphine, actually looking something close to apologetic. “I’m sorry,” Delphine says, and Eres stares at her, stunned. “This isn’t going to be easy for you, it seems.”

“Was it ever going to be easy?” Serana retorts. The magic fades from her hands as she crosses her arms over her chest, scowling at nothing in particular. Eres isn’t sure which of them had been more bothered by the guard—her, or Serana.

“No,” Delphine says plainly. “But it would have been easier if she wasn’t an elf.” Serana’s glare hardens. “I don’t say that to be rude—I don’t mean it that way. I mean that people are going to doubt you. You’re going to have to get used to proving yourself to people,” Delphine says. “I imagine you’ll be doing it a lot, until this is all over.”

“This is why I didn’t want anyone to know.” Eres misses Fellburg already. Or—no. A vice clenches around her heart. Not even Fellburg was safe from this, anymore. Yosef resented her for it too, now.

“You don’t have that luxury, I’m afraid.” Delphine shrugs. “Eventually, all things come to a head. It’s time you take your rightful place as Dragonborn.”

“You believe me now,” Eres says, though she hardly needs to.

Delphine nods. “I saw it with my own eyes. I was fairly certain, before, but, now there is no doubt. And,” she adds, “I have an idea for how we might find out more about these resurrections.”

“That’s what still doesn’t make sense to me.” Serana’s glare fades at last as she shakes her head, looking bothered. “How is it that Alduin is able to resurrect them the way he does? It can’t be necromancy. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Perhaps there’s more to necromancy than you know,” Delphine suggests, but Serana shakes her head again.

“I don’t think so. I know more about necromancy than you can imagine,” she says, “and my mother knows even more. There was one thing she was always clear about: once something is dead, it’s _dead_. You can _borrow_ the soul for a time, with reanimation, but there’s a limit to how long after something has died you can even do that much, and eventually the tether between body and soul will wear too thin to keep it in the world of the living. That’s why things that are raised aren’t indefinite - it’s physically impossible to keep them here for very long. And,” she adds, “there’s no manner of reanimation I know of that restores flesh. You’re right in that it’s closer to resurrection, but I don’t understand _how_.”

“Time,” Eres says, and when both of them look at her, she shrugs helplessly. “Alduin is the Time God, isn’t he?” She can see the gears turning in their minds. “He’s not resurrecting them. He’s turning back the clock. He’s just restoring them to _before_ they died.”

Serana’s brow furrows. “Is that—is that even _possible_?”

“Considering what I went through,” Eres reminds her, “I don’t think anything is impossible when it comes to manipulating time.”

“I sense a story behind that,” Delphine says, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“There is one.” Eres confirms. “You’re not getting it. Just know I have experience with it.”

Delphine raises a brow. “With _time manipulation_?”

“Something like that.” Eres looks back at Serana, and sees that the woman seems to be considering it. By the look of her, the idea is starting to make some sense. Eres knew she would be the one to understand it, if no one else did. “If anyone can do it, it would be the God of Time, don’t you think?”

“She has a point,” Serana admits. “But that leaves us with another problem. How can we be sure he just can’t _restore_ the dragons you’ve already killed? He could just keep raising them forever, probably.”

“Probably,” Eres admits. “But there has to be some way of stopping him. People have stopped him before, haven’t they?”

“That was ages ago.” Delphine shakes her head. “We don’t have enough information about the last time Alduin was defeated yet. _But_ ,” she says, “I think I might know where we might find some.”

“Which would be…?”

“Let’s get inside.” Delphine points down the hill, back to Kynesgrove. Eres’ expression sours. “We can get a room or two and talk it over in private. _Inside_.”

Eres doesn’t like the thought of stepping into that inn again, but she has little choice. “Fine.”

They have a meal, and a bath, and Eres is not sure what bothers her more: The incessant staring of the other patrons, or the way she can tell that they all want to confront her, but won’t. She almost wishes they would just say whatever is on their mind. Somehow, it feels worse not knowing. She is glad to be rid of them when she and the others gather into one of the rooms they had managed to reserve - the larger of the two available which even had a small table and set of chairs to sit at. Delphine nurses a tankard full of a sharp, spicy smelling ale. Inigo, as ever, drinks nothing aside from chilled milk from the icebox. Eres, for once, opts for a light cider, one she had not expected to be alcoholic, but the slight buzz of pleasant warmth beneath her skin suggests that it is. She cannot bring herself to care, at that moment, at least not enough to go back into the main hall and ask for something different. Serana, surprising all of them, pours out a glass of wine.

“I didn’t know you could drink wine.” Eres watches her, almost not convinced it’s not some kind of trick of the eye.

Serana shrugs. “Liquid is alright,” she says simply. “Can’t digest anything solid, though.”

“I don’t want to know,” Delphine says, lip curling. “Spare us the details.” Serana shrugs in answer.

“It seemed appropriate. I could hardly bring blood in here.”

Eres feels Delphine’s eyes on her. And Inigo’s. “Why are you looking at me?”

Delphine looks away. Inigo coughs into a hand. “No reason.” Delphine says. “Now, onto business?”

“Let’s get this over with,” Eres still eyes the woman, fairly certain of what Delphine had been thinking. They probably thought _she_ was Serana’s blood—well. Inigo probably didn’t, given he’d been traveling with them for days and he would have seen it if that was the case. But she does know Inigo expects it, at some point. It just hasn’t happened yet. “I want to go to sleep.”

“And you need healing.”

“And I need healing,” Eres adds, though she still feels no pain besides the usual aftermath of the headaches. There is nothing but the dull ache behind her eyes, fading now that she’s had food and drink and a nice, warm bath. By the time she wakes tomorrow, the headache will be nothing but a bad memory.

“I still believe the Thalmor have something to do with Alduin’s return,” Delphine says, without an ounce of preamble. “But, I can’t prove it yet. The good news is that there is an opportunity coming up for us to find out exactly what the Thalmor are up to, and what they have to do with him.”

“I’m not convinced even the Thalmor could do something like this.” Serana’s doubt is plain. Somehow it looks far more disdainful when she’s holding a glass of wine. It is not a terrible look for her.

“I’m not convinced they _couldn_ _’t_ ,” Delphine argues. “There is an event coming up, right here in Skyrim at that Thalmor Embassy near Solitude. A little party for the who’s who of the Empire. I can get you on the guest list.”

“ _Me_?” Eres gapes at her. “Why me?”

“Well, _I_ certainly can’t go in there.” Delphine says. “I’m wanted by the Thalmor, as are any of the Blades. He would be too conspicuous—” she waves a dismissive hand in Inigo’s direction, who just grins as though it were a compliment. “And you—” Delphine looks at Serana. Frowns. “Actually,” she says, “you might be able to pull it off. You have that sheltered noble look about you.”

Serana scowls. “I do not.”

“You kind of do.” Eres admits, and shrugs when Serana shoots her a betrayed look. “It’s true. Anyone looking at you would assume you’re a noble. You have that air about you. It’s not a bad thing.”

“Sounds like it,” Serana mutters, and she sinks lower in her chair, glowering at the both of them.

“Regardless,” Delphine says, “I think _you_ should be the one to do it,” she says, looking at Eres again. “It’s not that I don’t trust your friend here, but you have more of a stake in it than she does. And you’re more likely to blend in with the crowd.” When Eres raises a brow at that, Delphine explains, “I have a man who can get you behind enemy lines to go snooping around, but a woman like Serana wandering around the complex would draw too much attention. You, on the other hand…”

Eres frowns. “You mean because I’m an elf,” she says flatly, unimpressed. “They wouldn’t think twice about an elf wandering around the complex. They’d just think I was a servant.”

“That is part of it, yes. Though, of course, you’d have to dress well enough to get in the front door.”

“You realize the Altmer aren’t much more fond of my kind than they are of yours? They think everyone is beneath them.”

“Maybe,” Delphine admits with a shrug, “but you are closer to them than we are. And,” she adds, “you’re a lot smaller than your friend. It would be a lot harder for her to blend in than you.”

“I’m not _that_ small,” Eres scowls, crossing her arms. She’s _perfectly average,_ for fuck’s sake.

“Small enough,” Serana adds, and shoots her a smirk when Eres glares at her. “You can fit into small spaces.” Eres kicks at her under the table. She misses, but it does make her feel marginally better. She’ll have to find a way to get her back properly later.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Delphine says pointedly, “I can get you an invite. All we need to do is get you something appropriate to wear, get you in the door, and then you can have a look around and see if you can find anything.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we’ll have to reevaluate from there. For now, this is our best lead.”

“She’s not going there without me.” Serana says. “Make that two invites, and we’ll do it.”

“Two?” Delphine looks between them. Then she frowns. “This isn’t a social party. You’re not going there to flirt.”

“Of course not,” Serana says, ignoring the barb, “but those are _Thalmor_ in there. If Eres is made while she’s in there, she’s going to have one hell of a time trying to get out again. _If_ she makes it out. How much do you think the Thalmor would kill to have the Dragonborn under their thumb?” Delphine’s expression darkens. “Exactly. But you put _me_ in there—I can mingle. I might not be able to sneak around like her, but I can keep an eye on things. And if things start going south, I would be able to grab Eres and get us both out of there before they realized what hit them. Vampire, remember?”

“Hmm…” Delphine leans back in her seat, considering. “You make a good point. With your senses, you would be able to hear what’s going on even if Eres isn’t in the same room as you, would you not?” Serana nods. “That could be invaluable. If there’s any level of suspicion, you would be able to act quickly before they had the chance to interfere.” Delphine nods, then, almost to herself more than them. “Then it’s settled. I’ll see what I can do about getting you both on the list. We’ll make our way to Solitude and get you some appropriate attire, and we infiltrate the Embassy. Sound like a plan?”

“Fine by me.” Serana says. She seemed entirely satisfied now that Delphine has agreed to her involvement.

“What about Inigo?” Inigo asks then, and it strikes Eres then that he has not said a word the entire time. “What can Inigo do to help?”

“That depends,” Delphine says. “What do you have on offer? Have any contacts in the city?”

“Inigo knows many people.” Inigo says. “Including people who do not wish to be known. Inigo can get in touch with them, and see if any of them have heard things rumbling beneath the surface.”

Delphine nods with grim satisfaction. For some reason, Inigo seems pleased with the acknowledgment. Eres had not thought her opinion of him had mattered to him. “That’s a good idea, actually. There may be more going on underground than we know of. When we reach the city, you should check in with the people you know. Find out what you can weasel out of them without drawing too much suspicion. Can you do that?”

“Inigo can,” Inigo confirms, and his lips spread with an impish grin. “And he will. Although,” he admits, “Inigo is sad he will miss the dancing.”

“There will be no dancing whatsoever,” Eres says shortly. When they all look at her, she mimes a shudder. “It’s always the gross ones who want to dance with you.” Her mind recalls one too many times when she had been younger and her father had entertained guests - back when they’d had the money to do so. And how very often the older senators would be the first to ask for her hand in a dance. And, how very often she had not had the opportunity to say no. She can practically still feel their clammy palms against her hands, smell the sharp, overpowering scent of their cologne.

“Shame,” Serana says, “I might have asked for a dance myself.”

Delphine makes a disgusted noise. “Alright. On _that_ note, it’s high time for me to leave. I have a contact in Windhelm I need to meet up with before I head to Solitude. Meet me at the docks in three days.”

“That doesn’t give us much time,” Eres notes, frowning after her as she leaves. “We’ll have to move fast.”

“Or,” Serana says, “it gives us plenty of time, if we drop by the College first.” When Eres looks at her, confused, Serana explains, “We need to see Mirabelle about what happened today. Eventually you’re going to hurt yourself in a way you can’t come back from.” She had a point. “Plus,” Serana adds, “we can borrow their teleporter. Instead of having to catch a carriage or ride all the way there.”

That was another point for Serana. “Sounds good,” Eres says, surprised. She feels a little more settled now that they have a plan. “Inigo?”

“Inigo will head to Solitude first,” he says, almost hesitantly as though he expects to be told no. “It may take him some time to find his old contacts. He has not spoken to them in a very long time.”

Eres nods. “We’ll meet you there, then.”

Inigo nods, and stands from his seat. “Inigo will see you in the morning, and then he will head for Solitude. He will meet you at the Winking Skeever?” He asks, and Eres nods. He smiles. “This is exciting!” He exclaims. “Inigo feels like a spy.”

“You are one, kind of.”

“Inigo always wanted to be a spy.” He shuffles out of the room, then, still murmuring to himself about his plans of espionage - luckily, in no way that anyone outside their group could understand.

“He’s certainly…spirited,” Serana says haltingly, when he leaves.

Eres snorts. “Don’t hurt yourself trying to be too nice.”

“I can be nice,” Serana argues. Eres sends her a dubious look. “Sometimes. I’m nice to you.”

“I’m a special case.”

“Are you?”

“Aren’t I?” Eres asks. When she stands, Serana stands with her. The room Eres has rented for the two of them is on the large side, with one large bed for both of them. Not that Serana ever sleeps, of course, but the thought of falling asleep with her is a welcome one, all the same. Now that their little impromptu meeting is over, Eres feels the exhaustion seeping into her bones. She wants to lay down and never get up again. She doesn’t remember being this tired when she used to run around adventuring before. She feels _old_ , somehow, and by elven terms, she’s hardly even an adult.

“You are,” Serana admits. The joking tone of her voice evaporates entirely, replaced with a softness that feels too intimate in a room that seems suddenly far too small for the both of them. She raises a hand to touch at Eres’ arm, to guide her gently toward the bed, to urge her to sleep.

But suddenly, sleep is the furthest thing from her mind.

Because Serana’s touch calms and thrills her in equal, opposing parts. There is the whisper of Serana’s touch against her arm, the closeness of her body, the warmth of her gaze helping to ground her in the moment. Suddenly even her anxieties and worries seem like distant daydreams, hardly worth the effort she expends to worry over them. She has Serana, after all, what need has she for nerves and stress? Then there is the fire that her touch lights beneath her skin, even now, even here, even where it should not be. The heat of it races up her arm like lightning, traveling up tuntil it settles somewhere at the back of her neck, making the fine hairs there rise to attention, causing goosebumps to erupt along the length of her spine. Until it dips and pools low into a churning heat, until there is the feeling like her stomach might just drop right out of her, but somehow in a thrilling, swooping kind of way that leaves her breathless in more ways than one.

Serana looks at her, then, and there is a change in her eyes, a change in _her_ , period, as though she can sense it. The soft warmth of her gaze turns to something like liquid heat, and the sight of that in Serana’s eyes makes Eres feel weak. Too weak to resist it any longer than she has already.

How long has she restrained herself? How long have they been playing this game of tug of war between them, this constant push and pull of testing boundaries and pulling away and testing them again, over and over? How much had Eres herself stepped out of her comfort zone, hoping to somehow coax Serana out of her own, to pull from her the sign that yes, Serana wants this, beyond any shadow of a doubt? Eres had almost given up hope on seeing it, on Serana ever showing the one thing she is looking for—but there it is, now, in the very last place Eres would have expected to find it, at what might have been the worst possible time.

Eres has a destiny to fulfill, people to protect, a world to save…

But in the here and now, as Serana’s hand lifts to brush the hair from her eyes, Eres feels like all of that is miles and miles away. Right now, there are no dragons to fight, no prophecies to fulfill, no fates to step into, no world-ending apocalypses to circumvent.

There is just Eres, and the woman she wants desperately to love with everything she has left of her. The woman she would gladly lay down her life for, and _has_ —and would do so again, if she had to, no questions asked. She would do it. In a heartbeat, in an instant, without thought. Because she loves eher. Because she is _in_ love with her. Because a world without Serana is not a world she wants to live in, anymore.

“Eres,” Serana says, and her voice is a bit lower than usual, a bit huskier in a way that Eres isn’t sure she’s ever heard it before.

It sends a shiver through her, sends her stomach swooping in that dangerous, pleasant way all over again, and Eres takes a quick, shallow breath. She can’t do this anymore. She can’t keep playing this game with her, this give and take, this half-in and half-out, this, will-they or won’t-they. She wants more than that. She _needs_ more than that. She needs an answer. She needs _her_.

There is heat, at her cheeks. Heat, all over, even in places it probably shouldn’t be, in places it has no business being, but it Is there all the same. Eres doesn’t have it in her to ignore it anymore, to pretend it doesn’t send her careening off balance.

She’d tried to be slow and understanding. She’d tried—well, she had _tried_ to be more affectionate with Serana, hoping she would take the hint, hoping something would change, would shift, but expressions of physical affection had never really been Eres’ strong suit. Maybe she’d done it wrong. Maybe she hadn’t been quite bold enough. Maybe she hadn’t been quite _blunt_ enough. Maybe she should have been more direct. Maybe she should have just come out and _said it_ , out loud, and then they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.

There are too many maybe’s, and Eres has had enough of those. She’s tired of maybes, of not knowing for sure. She’s tired of beating around the bush. Enough of that. Enough of the teasing and the flirting and—whatever else this dance they’ve been doing would be counted as. Eres needs something real, something tangible, something she can count on. She needs a commitment. She needs Serana.

Eres opens her mouth. It feels suddenly dry, in the heat of the moment, in the wake of her own nerves, and she takes a moment to lick her lips before she speaks. She does not miss the way that Serana’s eyes drop to trace it, nor the way it feels like she might just fall right through the floor if her stomach keeps swooping the way it does when Serana looks at her like—like she wants her, too. It can’t be healthy.

“Tell me,” Eres says, a demanding more than a pleading. Her yearning for something, anything to change, anything to happen between them, turns to something like frustration. She needs an answer. If she just had an answer…

Serana looks at her, holds her gaze steady. Somehow, anything but a whisper feels inappropriate, too loud in the too-quiet, too-charged space between them.

“Tell me,” Eres repeats, more firmly, sounding somehow like confidence where it feels closer to desperation. “Tell me you want this, too.”

Serana does not answer her in words, but action. There is so much of Serana that is unspoken, unheard, unknowable. It is in the way Serana looks at her, the way she reaches for her, the way she lives, and breathes, and exists here beside her. It is in the way she takes a breath, as if to steel herself. It is in the press of her lips against hers, the barest ghost of a touch, the lightness of a whisper of silk against skin. There is a fraigility in it, in _her_ , a caution, a certain air of uncertainty, of fear. Serana kisses her like she fears Eres might break under her touch.

Serana’s lips are warmer than she’d imagined they would be, and softer than she could have dreamed them. Than she _had_ dreamed them to be, too many times to count. _Serana_ , herself, is softer than she’d thought she would be, overcautious where Eres had once imagine d her confidence, like back when Serana’s flirtations had not had the weight they did now. Before she had known her. Before they had known each other. Before Eres had loved her.

Eres feels that caution in every ounce of her, in the barely-there press of lips against her own, in the brush of fingertips against her cheeks that tremble, just the slightest bit, as if afraid to commit to the touch. As if afraid to commit to her. She feels it, for a moment, and then she feels nothing more. It is over almost before it begins, somehow an eternity and a mere instant all at once.

“I hope—” Serana starts, with a voice that sounds more fragile than Eres has ever heard her sound, has ever _wanted_ to hear her sound, “that was what you meant.”

There is the question of, how could she have meant anything else? How could she have wanted anything else, but her? But Eres can see it, there. She can see Serana’s uncertainty, the anxiety brimming beneath the surface, the worry of being wrong, of doing the wrong thing, of reading the wrong thing in the wrong way. Eres knows that feeling well. She’s felt it, too. The doubt of it all, possibly since the day they met. The doubt of being sure that this couldn’t be right for them, that they were too different, that they could not possibly—could not ever have this. Eres cannot even say for sure when that feeling began. It feels as though it had always been there, lying in wait. Growing stronger by the day.

“Is this—” Serana’s mouth closes. Her lips press together. Her brows furrow, conflict plain in her eyes. “Is this what you want?” She asks at last, but she asks it as though she fears the answer.

Eres wants to assure her. To kiss her and hold her and prove to her that yes, it is, and there is nothing she’s ever wanted more. But there is something she has to know, first. Something far more important. Something monumental.

“Is this what _you_ want?” Eres asks her instead, feeling her own doubt crawling up into her chest, heavy and cold and suffocating. But she has to ask. She has to know. She has to be _sure_. “Or is it what you think I want?” If she’s honest with herself, that had been what she feared all along—what if it was in her head? What if she’d allowed her feelings to cloud her perception of things? Even worse, what if she’d somehow led Serana to believe that this was something that _had_ to happen between them? Eres knows, even as she thinks of it, that she is being irrational. She doesn’t think anyone could make Serana do anything she didn’t want to do. But with Serana’s history—with what had happened to her, Eres wants to be _sure_. She needs to be, or she’ll always wonder if it’s real.

Serana blinks, and for a moment she looks genuinely baffled by the question. Then, she laughs, but it is a laugh that sounds broken, jagged at the edges. “I _wish_ I knew what you wanted,” Serana says, shaking her head. There is a smile at her lips that does not reach her eyes, rueful and wry and a little too self-deprecating for Eres’ taste. “This would be so much easier if I did. If I knew…” Serana swallows. She averts her gaze, but Eres cannot pull her own eyes away from her. She has never seen Serana this way, so laid bare before her, so exposed. This is a side of her that only Eres knows, now. “If I knew how you’d felt about me, I wouldn’t be so…”

“Afraid,” Eres realizes, at the same moment that she says it aloud. It is a realization that throws her, somehow, that sends her mind tumbling end over end. Afraid? _Of her_? That is the very last thing Eres would have ever wanted her to feel. “Are you afraid of me?”

“A little,” Serana admits. “I’ve heard the jokes, of course, but,” she shrugs, forcibly casual. “Vampires have hearts, too.” The implication is clear.

“I wouldn’t,” Eres promises. If there is anything at all she can promise, it is that. She never breaks a promise. And she isn’t going to break Serana’s heart, either. On the contrary, she wants to protect it, to build it up into something more, to show Serana the kind of love she’d never received. Eres takes a step closer. Not for the first time, she is annoyed by just how very tall Serana is—it would be much easier to kiss her if she didn’t have to get on her tiptoes to do it. She’s not even that short, damn it - Serana is just too tall.

Serana looks down at her. Eres must have managed to keep the annoyance from showing on her face, because she sees not even the slightest hint of Serana’s usual amusement at their difference in stature. Instead, she looks—wary, a bit, and there is her uncertainty, there, too, but more than that, there is a profound, wistful sort of sadness that makes even Eres ache inside. “I don’t know if I deserve you.” Serana whispers, as though she is afraid to speak of it aloud. As if she is afraid to admit it.

Eres feels her brows snap together, feels the frown form on her lips. “What?” She asks, because she’s certain she hadn’t heard that right.

“I just—don’t know if I’m meant for that kind of happiness,” Serana admits. “The things I’ve done… Where I come from—”

No, Eres had heard her correctly. Serana is just an idiot. A very stupid, despondent idiot who is way too hard on herself. “Shut up,” she says, and Serana actually looks affronted. Or she does, until Eres grabs her by the collar and _pulls_.

Eres pulls her down until she can kiss her, until she can lift herself up on her toes and press her lips firmly against hers. Not soft, but firm. Not cautious, but sure. She is sure of this. She has never been more sure of anything. She has long since lost control over the heat inside her, of the almost too-hot pull low in her belly, of the weakness in her knees. She feels weightless and reckless and a little bit hopeless—because kissing Serana makes the world go to pieces, makes none of it matter, makes her world narrow to the feeling of lips against hers, of breath against her cheek and the arms that wrap around her waist. Nothing else matters. Just them, and this feeling, and the love inside her, the love she feels for her.

Eres doesn’t know when that started. Perhaps there had never been a _start_. Perhaps it had simply always been there. Perhaps they had always been inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're so stupid but I love them. For those wondering... that sort of back and forth conversation between them will make a lot more sense later on. Without going into spoiler territory, this act will be exploring a bit deeper into Serana's character. Those of you familiar with her backstory may already have an idea. 
> 
> But on a lighter note: FUCKING FINALLY  
> also it took me a whole ass week to write this chapter and I've never been so nervous to write in my life. jeeeeesus. i’m sorry for your poor eyes shdkfkf


	3. Square Peg, Round Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it weird that it’s weird to write them this way? lmaoo i got so used to the will they won’t they that the “they Are” feels odd. also i’ve never actually written romance before so, that’s something.
> 
> anyways enjoy
> 
> Edit: 5/24/20: some formatting stuff

Mirabelle Ervine has an office. Eres had not been aware of that before, but, apparently, she does have one - she just doesn’t use it often. Or ever. Except when she’s entertaining guests that happen to be a Dragonborn and a vampire. The instant the door closes behind them and latches shut, Eres feels something like a backwards draft, like the air being sucked out of the room in a way that could not have been natural. There is a feeling in her ears not unlike the feeling that they need to pop, like the very pressure in the room has changed. Eres rubs at one ear, discomfited by the sudden lack of ambient sound. “There’s a spell in this room?”

“Very astute,” Mirabelle commends her. “There is. You can be certain that no one will overhear our conversation, here.”

Serana hums under her breath, eyes searching the room, cataloguing all that she sees. There are a number of magical artifacts here, many of which Serana has never seen in person.

“How was your journey?” Mirabelle asks, forcibly polite.

Eres sends the woman a wry smile. “You don’t have to sit on ceremony,” she says simply. “I like to think I know you well enough to know you don’t care for small talk.”

“I don’t,” Mirabelle admits, “but I am genuinely curious. You left in pursuit of your role as Dragonborn, did you not? What did you find?”

“A missing horn and a really annoying woman.” Serana says, and shrugs. “We’re actually here on a bit of a detour. Not to play catch-up.”

“I imagined there was a purpose for this meeting, yes.” Mirabelle nods. “You,” she says to Eres, “have never struck me as the type to meet with people to shoot the wind, so to speak.”

That was a very polite way of saying that Eres didn’t seem like the person to visit out of the kindness of her heart. Which she isn’t. When she comes to Mirabelle, it’s always with a reason. Something she needs. Perhaps there’s something off balance about that, but Eres can’t bring herself to care at that moment.

They had managed to save some time by bribing a ferryman at Windhelm to take them up the strait to Winterhold, shaving nearly an entire day from their travels. But, they still needed to be in Solitude in just two days, and they didn’t have time to waste on pleasantries.

Were it up to Eres, she might not have come here at all - she would have shrugged it off as a fluke, and never thought of it again. But Serana had been insistent that she _needed_ to get to the bottom of her magical — what? _Ailment_? Eres doesn’t know quite what to call it. Faced with Serana’s concern, however, Eres had reluctantly agreed.

Which brings her here. To Mirabelle’s office.

“Do you remember when you tested my magic?” Eres asks her. She takes a seat in one of the chairs that is placed directly in front of Mirabelle’s desk. She can’t help but be reminded of scoldings by her tutors. She supposes Mirabelle is rather something like a tutor, in a way.

“I remember,” Mirabelle says. She looks at Eres shrewdly, eyes sharp and measuring. She offers nothing else.

Eres frowns. “You said that you needed to think about it. Have you figured out what’s causing it?”

From the other side of the room near a bookshelf she has taken to perusing, Serana sighs. “What she means is, she’s experiencing new symptoms.”

Mirabelle straightens in her seat. She suddenly looks far more interested in the conversation. “Oh?” She asks, glancing at Serana, who nods. She looks back at Eres, eyes narrowing. “Why did you not mention this before?”

“I was _getting_ there,” Eres mutters. “It’s only happened once.”

“And _it_ would be…?”

“Bleeding,” Serana answers for her. “From both of her ears, and her nose, after performing a spell in battle. I’m not sure what she actually did.”

“It was just to make the arrows fly.” Mirabelle looks at her, raises a singular brow. “It was a dragon. Arrows don’t stand up to wind that well. I had to make them be able to pierce through it, so we could bring him to ground.” Eres shrugs. “I just made them fly true.”

“How?” Mirabelle asks. “With an enchantment?”

“No, with a spell.” Eres says. “Or, I guess it wasn’t much of a spell, really.” She shrugs. “I infused them with magicka and it worked.”

Mirabelle’s lips press together. “You had no particular spell in mind, and it ‘just worked’?” She asks, sounding dubious. “And this is when you began bleeding?”

“I assume so,” Eres shrugs. “I didn’t notice until after the dragon was dead. Just felt like the usual headache.”

“Hmm…” Mirabelle leans back in her seat, a hand pressed to her chin in thought. “This actually does line up quite nicely with my theory,” she admits. “I had not been certain before, but I am fairly certain of it now.”

“Certain of _what_?” For once, couldn’t Mirabelle just say what she _meant_?

“Give me a moment. Your mother would be much better at explaining this than I would be.”

Mirabelle is up out of her seat and out the door before Eres has a chance to ask, “What the hell does my _mother_ have to do with this?”

Serana looks after her, frowning in thought. “Well, your gift is from your mother’s side, isn’t it?” Serana asks, turning to move toward her, closing in on her from the other side of the room, and Eres feels her heart rate jump in response.

 _She_ _’s not even_ ** _doing_** _anything_ , Eres tells herself, annoyed by her own reaction. Would it always be like this? Would Serana’s mere proximity be enough to excite her? Would she ever go back to _not_ being distracted by the movement of her lips when she talks?

“I assume her magic must be similar to yours,” Serana continues, shrugging as she falls almost gracefully into the chair beside her own. If she had noticed Eres’ reaction, she had at least been kind enough not to mention it. Or, more likely in Serana’s case, tease her for it.

“Perhaps she knows something about this kind of thing.” Perhaps Serana had just been too preoccupied to notice. Or, perhaps she is being polite. She could be that, sometimes.

“Maybe.” Eres hears a rhythmic tap-tap-tapping. It’s not until Serana’s hand falls upon her own that she realizes that _she_ is the one making that sound, tapping a finger absently against the wooden arm of her chair. And without fail, her heart jumps at _that_ , too, because of course it would - despite the fact that _she_ had often been the one to hold Serana’s hand, first. Somehow, when it’s Serana doing it, when it’s Serana initiating it, it makes Eres all a-flutter. Like a damned schoolgirl.

It’s almost funny, looking back at what she had once thought to be her first crush as a teenager. That had been nothing in comparison, a passing infatuation, maybe, if even it could be considered that much. It seems too much like comparing a molehill to a mountain. Eres hadn’t quite realized just how much of loving someone meant trying in vain to control your body’s reactions to them. At all times.

Well. Maybe not _all_ times. But at least in public.

“Nervous?” Serana asks her.

Eres nods. She’s nervous about the magic thing, of course, but she’s nervous about a lot of other things, too. Hell, at any given time of day, Eres can think of about twenty things she has to be anxious about, probably. Honestly, she’s kind of always just a step away from being a bit of a nervous wreck. She’s just always been very good at hiding that from people.

People, that was. Not vampires. Because she can’t hide her pulse, or pretend that her heart doesn’t race when Serana’s near. Serana can _hear_ it, after all. And the more Eres thinks about how very _aware_ Serana must be of these things all the time, the more nervous she finds herself getting about it, the more self-conscious. It’s not that she’s necessarily embarrassed about the way she feels—they’ve moved past that, now, at least, _finally_ , but Serana’s got her at an unfair advantage.

Mirabelle returns, then, and to Eres’ surprise, she has Auria in tow. At the sight of her, Serana rips her hand away from Eres’ so quickly that she almost feels offended. From the glance Auria shoots them, it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Well. At least they know the teleportation circle must be working. Silver lining. 

At the very least, Auria at least does not comment on it. If she suspects something has changed between them, she says nothing of it. “Fellburg is doing as well as can be expected, given the circumstances,” Auria says instead, before Eres can even think to ask. “We are in the midst of procuring resources to rebuild the homes that were lost.”

“With what money?” Eres mutters. She’d had _something_ in savings, thanks to Johanna, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover the damages. It’d probably hardly even be enough to cover the damage to the Keep itself, let alone the entire village. Eres hopes they’ll direct that money to the homes, first, rather than the Keep itself.

“We have our ways,” Auria shrugs, cryptic as ever. She shifts gears so quickly she very nearly gives Eres whiplash. “Mira told me your symptoms have worsened?”

“It was _one time_ ,” Eres huffs.

“Once is enough.” Auria sounds far too much like Serana, in that moment. From the glance Serana shoots her way, she knows it, too. “It is better to address these things quickly, before they have the chance to worsen.”

“That’s what _I_ said,” Serana says. “She didn’t even want to come.”

 _Tattletale,_ Eres thinks, childishly. Auria sends her a critical look, and she sinks lower in her chair, feeling suddenly very young and very much scolded without Auria saying a single word. It must be some kind of innate maternal superpower to convey disappointment without speaking.

“It is good you managed to get her to listen to you, then,” Auria says, as if Eres listening to anyone is some kind of grand accomplishment. She’s not sure if she should be insulted or not.

She’s going to pretend it’s not a veiled insult of some kind. “Mirabelle said you’d know something about it. Have you seen something like it before?”

“No.” Auria says plainly. “However, I think I may know what is causing it, all the same.”

“…And?” Eres asks, when Auria does not immediately continue. “What is it, then?”

Auria takes a seat upon Mirabelle’s desk, who surprisingly does not seem to mind. “It is not your fault,” Auria begins. “Mirabelle did test your grasp of magic - there is nothing wrong with your ability to perform it. Your tutors taught you well, for what it is worth. If nothing else, at least your father managed that much.”

Eres will give him that, at least, though she’s still quite sure he’d only found her suitable tutors for her magic because he feared what might happen otherwise.

Uncontrolled magic had a habit of escaping in unexpected ways, and her father had the superstition of a Nord down to his bones. And, he had always been the type of man who did things only when they benefitted himself in some way or another.

“However,” Auria says, “there is a strain, when you perform it.” Eres’ brow furrows. She looks at Mirabelle, who nods.

“I did not mention it at the time because I was not sure of its cause. I wished to consult with Auria first. When one performs magic,” Mirabelle explains, sounding far too much like the rehearsed lecturers Eres had studied under many years ago, “One must pull their mana from within them, convert it to magicka, shape it, expel it - in the appropriate manner for the spell they wish to perform, the school, which enchantment they wish to create—so on and so forth.”

That is hardly news to her. That’s elementary magical theory, the first thing a young mage student learns. There is a process to using magic, a certain kind of rhythm to it. Eres had had that drilled into her from day one, as any mage would.

“However, there are many forms of magic, just as there are many schools, and not all of them function in the same manner. In the same vein, there are many kinds of mages, those who excel in some schools who may also struggle to even craft the simplest spell in others - a certain natural predisposition for a certain _kind_ of magic, if you will. A natural shape or form that their mana wishes to take. When one forces their magic to conform to a shape which it does not naturally adhere to,” Mirabelle explains, “there can be consequences. Detriments. A misfire, for example, a spell going awry, or performing in an unexpected manner. Or worse, a backfiring in which the mage is harmed.”

Eres has heard of those, of course. In a way, her experience with the binding rune as a child counted as a backfiring—a rather docile, mostly harmless one, but a backfire all the same.

“Imagine, if you will, a pipe.” Eres raises a brow. When she looks at Serana, the woman shrugs helplessly. “Used correctly, water may flow through this pipe unimpeded, so long as it only carries the amount it is intended for. If that pipe were overwhelmed, however, filled beyond its means… Eventually, there would be a strain upon its structure, and that pipe would weaken and form cracks. At a certain point, under enough pressure, the pipe may burst. It is not that the pipe is not _made_ for water, rather, that is it its purpose. But, too much of something even one is meant for can be disastrous.”

“Oh,” Serana says suddenly, like she gets it. Like that makes any measure of sense at all.

Eres is far from stupid, but she doesn’t get what pipes have to do with her magic. She _gets_ the metaphor, mind you, but—she would _know_ if she was using too much magic, wouldn’t she? “You’re saying my… _pipe_ is overloaded?” Next to her, Serana coughs conspicuously. Eres elbows her. She’s going to pretend that doesn’t sound like an obscure euphemism.

“In layman’s terms, sort of.”

“To be more clear,” Auria says, “Your…pipe,” she says, and she sends Serana a sharp look, daring her to laugh, “is functioning properly. It is merely taking too much—”

“Alright,” Eres interrupts her. “Let’s just forget the pipe metaphor already, it’s getting weird.” Especially with her _mother_ being the one to say it. It’s significantly less funny coming from her. “What’s the problem, actually?”

“You are drawing magic and focusing it as anyone else would,” Mirabelle says, “but, there is—a leak, of sorts, only in the opposite direction. Rather than drawing from one source, you have been unintentionally drawing from multiple, and therefore, the magicka you draw upon is far denser than it should be, which makes it more difficult to shape. This is why you struggle with the initial formation of the spell, but not so much with its maintenance. Once the shape has been formed, the pressure eases as it conforms.”

“This is also why runic magic comes so easily to you in comparison,” Mirabelle continues. “As you are not required to shape it yourself, but rather through a physical conduit, such as a soul gem.”

“Makes sense,” Serana says, nodding, as if it actually does.

“No, it doesn’t,” Eres says, frowning. “How would I be doing that without knowing it?”

“Simple.” Auria looks almost proud, suddenly, though Eres can’t even begin to guess at why. “It is in your nature to do so.”

“Which means?”

“Bosmeri magic differs from Imperial—the Collegiate magic you have been taught. You are aware of this, yes?”

“In general.” Eres admits. She knows very little about the technicalities of it. Only that it was a different school of thought entirely. She knew very little about the actual differences between the two.

“Put simply,” Mirabelle says, “Collegiate magic draws from the power within - from the mana one is born with and grows with throughout their lives. Bosmeri mages, like your mother, draw power from the world around them, from the ambient mana that exists naturally in the world around them.”

Serana nods again. _“Now_ it makes even more sense.” She leans forward, almost eagerly. “Eres—you’ve been funneling ambient mana into your spells without even realizing it. That’s why you’ve struggled with it so much.” She blinks, considering, tilting her head a bit. “Actually,” she says, almost as an afterthought, “you’re probably lucky you haven’t managed to kill yourself yet.”

“We are all lucky, I imagine,” Mirabelle drawls, “that Eres has thus far avoided too much experimentation with the School of Destruction.”

Eres makes a face. “I was never trained to ‘ _draw magic from the world’,_ ” she quotes. “My tutors never even mentioned it.”

“And they wouldn’t,” Auria agrees. “It is not common practice outside of the Homeland.” She sighs, almost wistfully. “We _shall_ have to take you home some day. You showed your gift _very_ early, _mikros_ , before—before we were separated,” she says, very diplomatically, Eres thinks.

“There is a part of you that has always known how to do it; an instinct that is ingrained in your very nature. Your tutors forced you into learning otherwise, but they could not teach you to turn your instinct _off_. They did not know better, of course.” Auria shrugs at this, but she looks suddenly cross in the way she often does when she is reminded of Eres’ father. “If your father had bothered to allow you a _Bosmeri_ teacher…”

“That is neither here nor there,” Mirabelle says, interrupting Auria before she can start going on about Eres’ father. Or how Eres _should_ have been raised like an elf. “What matters is that, now that we know what is causing your limitation, we may now work to reverse it.”

“And just how do I do that?” Eres asks. “How do I fix something I can’t even _feel_?” Involuntarily, her toes flex within her boots, as if remembering the silence of the earth beneath her feet. As if remembering how very thin her connection to her Bosmer roots have always been.

“That is why I’ve come.” Auria says. “I will teach you—the _proper_ way. You must unlearn these habits of yours.”

Eres lets out a frustrated sigh, standing. “We don’t have time for that. We have to be in Solitude in just a couple of days.” Hell, without use of a teleport, they would have to leave _now_ if they had any hope of making it on time.

“And we will take you there, when the time comes,” Auria promises. “But until then,” she steps forward, grasping Eres’ hand, and tugs her forward. “I have two days, and I intend to make the most of it. You and I will be spending a lot of time together, _mikros_.” And she smiles, pulling her by the hand, drawing Eres along behind her as she makes for the door.

“Wait—”

“You can talk to Serana later, _mikros._ The world will not end for you spending a bit of time apart for once.”

Eres flushes from her head down to her feet. How did her mother just _know_ these things?

* * *

Serana wanders, aimless, to the Arcaneum. She should have come here first, really, knowing she would end up here eventually, but she had felt a little too antsy knowing Auria was nearby. She’s not necessarily trying to avoid anyone in particular (well, _maybe_ Auria, but Auria is with Eres, and so for the time being she is safe) - but rather, she thinks she should be able to function without Eres for a time. She should be able to spend time alone without wondering, constantly, what Eres is doing without her. How she is doing without her. And, thanks to Auria, Serana hadn’t even gotten to—well.

Serana realizes she has been staring at the same bookshelf for some time, frozen in place, lost in thought. There is a student at a desk eying her warily over his books. She’s making herself look _weird_ , as usual. Serana grabs a random book from the shelf without checking its title and makes herself scarce.

Which is to say, she finds a nice chair in a dark corner and claims it as her own. It’s comfortable enough. It’s even big enough that Eres could sit with her, if she wanted to, and—and there she goes again. She can’t even spend as much as five minutes of her time without thinking of her.

Serana had been silly to think that a kiss— _multiple_ kisses, she reminds herself, because they had kissed more than once, actually, as much as she still can hardly believe such a thing happened at all—would somehow make her _less_ obsessed with her.

She’d been silly to think it was simply curiosity that lay beneath her urges, and that once that curiosity was sated, she might return to normal. Or, relatively normal. As close to normal as one could be, anyways. Or, at the very least, that maybe once they had kissed, Serana wouldn’t be thinking of it _constantly_ , at every other second of the day.

Surely, she’d thought, it would make a difference in her - she would achieve her dream and be satisfied that yes, she _can_ kiss Eres, because—because that is a thing they can do, now.

But Serana had been stupid to think that. She had been stupid to think that because it has been exactly seventeen hours since their first kiss, and Serana knows that they have kissed only twice since, if one did not include Serana’s fumbling _attempt_ at a kiss, which she is still embarrassed to think about. She’d practically made a damn fool of herself. She is simply far too lucky that Eres was as fond of her as she was. Anyone else might have run for the hills. Or at least been less attracted to her, perhaps.

But. Serana remembers. The second time they had kissed had been the night before, after Eres had her bath, and she had come to bed warm and sleepy and soft, and Serana could not help herself, and Eres had known it. Even while half asleep, Eres seems to know her better than Serana knows herself, sometimes. The third time had been that morning, just before they left their room. Eres had tasted of mint, and a hint of the honey tea she had drank to wake herself. The taste of mortal foods rarely enticed Serana—but it was different when she kissed her. Everything seemed to be.

Everything had changed in a single night, and Serana is still reeling from it.

So much, in fact, that Serana had opened her book several minutes ago and not read a single word on its page.

“Interesting choice.”

Serana actually flinches. She does _not_ get snuck up on often. Even more proof that Eres has her completely out of sorts. She looks up to find Mirabelle standing over her, looking far too amused for Serana’s liking. “What?”

“Your book,” Mirabelle says, and she smirks. “An interesting choice of reading material here out in the open. Doing a bit of research, are we?”

Serana’s brow furrows. “What?” She looks down, closes the book in her hands, and turns it to read the title upon the spine. “Oh, by the _Divines_ ,” she mutters, and if she could have flung herself out the nearest window, she might have considered it just then. How, out of all the books she could have grabbed, had she managed to choose _The Lusty Argonian Maid_? “I wasn’t paying attention.” Why the hell did the _Arcaneum_ even have a copy of this book, anyways? Wasn’t this supposed to be an _academic_ library?

“Of course.” Mirabelle takes a seat in the chair just opposite her own, crossing one leg over the other. She at least wipes the amusement from her features, instead looking upon Serana searchingly, as if looking for something. “Something has changed between you and Eres.” She says, entirely without preamble.

Serana snaps her eyes up to her, and lets out a loud, heaving sigh. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“If it presents a danger—”

Serana glares at her. “I would _never_ hurt her.”

“To _either_ of you,” Mirabelle finishes, raising a brow. “You are a vampire. This, in and of itself, presents a unique challenge to the development of—any relationship, between you and any mortal. You are aware of this.”

“I’m not going to bite her.” Serana doesn’t know why everyone and their mothers, apparently, seem to think she is feeding from Eres on the regular. Do they really give off that impression? One of a vampire and her thrall? What is it about them that makes people assume that is the nature of their relationship?

“To my knowledge,” Mirabelle starts, her tone unexpectedly cautious, “you may not be able to help doing so, should things—”

“Oh no,” Serana says, and stands. “You’re not my mother. I’m not having this conversation with you.”

But Mirabelle stands, too, and does not let her leave without saying: “Your urges will become stronger, the closer the two of you grow. A vampire’s bite _is_ a bond, as often as it is reduced to a mere feeding apparatus. You would be wise to prepare for this temptation _now_ , before it overpowers you.”

“You underestimate me,” Serana says, and shrugs. “I was in a tomb for four thousand years and managed to keep myself from biting her—and that was _while_ she was actively bleeding right in front of me. _And_ after I’d tasted her blood.”

Not much of it, but enough that in the moment, her throat had burned for more of it. She can hardly remember its taste now. Which is probably a good thing, in the long run. The scent of it when Eres is injured is more than temptation enough without Serana remembering how it tasted. “I think I’ll manage.”

“You may be surprised.” Mirabelle’s voice softens. When she looks at Serana, it is with an unexpected empathy. “I have read more than one account of vampires who accidentally killed their lovers in fits of passion. I would not wish the same to happen to you.”

A chill comes over her. Serana knows of those stories, herself. They were one of many reasons vampires like herself were encouraged to avoid taking mortal lovers, or at least, to turn them as soon as possible. How often did even the thralls at home wind up dead for a _lover_ who went too far without meaning to?

Once a person was drained, that was it—no amount of ritual or vampiric blood could bring them back after that. Serana had always known this. It was one of several reasons she had vowed never to feed from Eres if she could help it.

Of course she had _joked_ about such a thing, but in reality—it would be too risky. She trusts herself to not bite her from pure temptation—if there is anything Serana can be proud of, it is her ironclad self-control. There had been no one even in the entire Volkihar clan that had even a fraction of the control she had. Her mother might be close, perhaps. But even she had her temptations where Serana had not.

But—the problem was that Serana did not know if she could trust herself to _stop_ once she had started. She is addicted to Eres enough already without the taste of her blood on her tongue. It certainly doesn’t help that Eres has implied on more than one occasion that she is perfectly willing to allow it. Her restraint should be commended, really.

“I didn’t know you cared.” Serana says, instead of admitting that she has a point. Admitting it makes it true. Makes it a possibility. Serana does not want to do that.

“Come, now.” Mirabelle actually scoffs at her. “I think, at this point, we can all stop pretending we feel no fondness towards one another. At the very least,” Mirabelle shrugs, “Eres is Auria’s daughter—and my godchild. And therefore, in a way, you are also my responsibility, as is Eres herself.”

Well, that was convoluted. “How do you figure that?”

“Daughter in law,” she says simply, and Serana’s breath leaves her in one fell swoop. _In law? Marriage?_ They’d only _just_ kissed, for Divine’s sake. It was a _lot_ too soon to be talking about _marriage_ , of all things. As if Serana could even _get_ married to begin with. She’s a vampire—there isn’t a Divine in the world that would bless a union like that and—and she’s going to stop thinking about that, now. 

“So to speak,” Mirabelle adds belatedly. She’d done it on purpose, the bitch. “You need not hold _everyone_ at arm’s length. Eres is not the only person who cares for your wellbeing, whether you believe it or not.”

Serana swallows, looks away. This would feel awkward coming from anyone, but it feels even more so coming from _Mirabelle,_ of all people. The woman had always seemed as standoffish as it got, like a mortal version of her own mother. To be confronted with Mirabelle being—being _caring_ is a bit too much for her delicate sensibilities.

She needs to get out of here. And hide somewhere nice and quiet and solitary where no one else will find her. Maybe the room Mirabelle had lent them. She could just wait there until Eres returned. It would be boring as all hell, but at least she’d be able to avoid another conversation like this one. And gods forbid she run into _Auria_.

“I’ll… keep that in mind,” Serana says, haltingly, if only so she can escape. Mirabelle does not look entirely convinced, but she also seems to understand that Serana has no capacity left for the conversation to continue.

“See that you do,” is all that Mirabelle says, and Serana flees.

* * *

It is nearing midnight by the time the door to their borrowed room opens. Serana had been perhaps mere minutes away of going in search of Eres herself, wondering just how long Auria intended to keep her under lock and key. It had only been her own inner conflict that had kept her from seeking Eres out earlier.

She can be away from Eres for a few hours, she’d told herself. She doesn’t need to see her every waking minute of the day. They’ve certainly spent longer away from each other before, and Eres is safer with Auria than she is with perhaps anyone else besides Serana herself. She has nothing to worry about.

Serana had _meant_ to read to pass the time. Not _The Lusty Argonian Maid,_ mind you, but _something_. She’d meant to _not_ spend her time thinking of Eres, worrying over her, wondering when she would return. She is better than that. (She isn’t—at least not currently.)

When the door opens, Eres steps inside and heaves a long, tired sigh. Her steps are slow, measured in the careful way of someone who is exhausted beyond words, who must put just a little too much focus in making sure they don’t just fall over. She does not even bother to take off her cloak. She merely makes a beeline right for the bed and collapses, face-first, onto it. And groans.

“…Are you okay?” Serana asks, hesitant. Sometimes Eres can be a bit prickly about these things. She doesn’t want to press a nerve. She doesn’t think Eres would _snap_ at her, or anything, but, she doesn’t want to add more stress onto an already stressful situation. Eres merely groans in answer.

Serana holds back a chuckle, standing. “You know,” she says, and she allows herself to sit on the bed beside her. There is at least a safe distance between them. Close, but not too close. She is measured and restrained in all things. “Speaking Alessian usually helps.”

“ _Ughhh,_ _”_ Eres says, and she lifts her head only to add, “she’s a _slavedriver._ ” And then she drops it again, and her eyes close, and she does not appear to have any desire to move again anytime soon.

Serana almost says Auria doesn’t seem the type, but she thinks about it a little more, and honestly—she kind of does, actually. “Do you want me to run you a bath?” She asks, because she can think of little else to say in the moment, and even _that_ sounds too intimate to her. Can't she just have _one_ normal conversation with her without sounding like she's making some kind of proposition?

“No,” Eres mumbles, more into the covers than at her. “If I get in the bath now I won’t come out.” Serana raises a brow at her. Eres turns on her side, looks at her, and sits up suddenly. Serana hasn’t got the slightest clue what the look on her face means until she shifts, and, without warning, instead drops her head right into Serana’s lap. And settles there.

Eres hums, then, curls up right there in her cloak on top of the covers, and looks perfectly content to fall asleep where she lies. Serana’s hands itch to touch her. To run her fingers through Eres’ hair, to lull her to sleep.

There is an unspeakable softness in Eres when she sleeps—Serana has always thought so, really, only now she has the right to. She has the right to even hold her, now, to pull her close, to watch the rise and fall of her breath, the flutter of dark eyelashes against golden-brown cheeks. And what is stopping her, now? Eres doesn’t mind, clearly.

Serana knows that. She _knows_ that, but she still feels the very phantom of a tremble in her hand as she threads her fingers through the head of dark hair nestled on her lap, ever so gently. Ever so carefully. She’s not done this for her before. She’s not had the chance. Everything is new. She has no idea if Eres will even like it, if she will allow it, and there is something in that that is uniquely terrifying.

What if she does this _wrong_? What if she is going about _all of it_ wrong?

But Eres sighs. Sinks into her further. “That feels nice,” she mumbles, against Serana’s thigh.

Serana pointedly ignores the heat of her breath through the fabric of her trousers. It does not matter that it seems so much warmer, now, so much more apparent. It does not matter that Serana feels that heat everywhere, all at once, even in the places that Eres is not touching. She is not tempted.

She is _not_ tempted.

“It would probably feel better if you were actually _in_ the bed.” Serana says, forcing her tone to be casual. Forcing _herself_ to be casual. How does Eres make it seem so easy? How does she not fall apart at the seams, like Serana feels she might? “Instead of laying about in your armor.”

Eres huffs. Serana feels the puff of breath against her once more. She holds herself so still that she forgets to breathe at all.

“That means I have to get up.”

“Generally,” Serana replies, “that is how it works.” The sarcasm comes easy to her. She can do that. And Eres is the type of girl who doesn’t mind it, who can meet her tit for tat, who can hold her own with any banter Serana throws at her. That’s the easy part.

The _talking_ is the easy part. It’s the _everything else_ that she struggles with. It’s the other things she’s still learning, still fumbling at like a newborn calf trying to find its legs.

Eres sighs again, sounding markedly more annoyed than before, but she does at least make the effort to sit up. She sends Serana a half-hearted glare as she stands, as if she blames _her_ for the fact that getting ready for bed generally means she has to actually do it herself.

Somewhere in the back of Serana’s mind, she wonders if that will always be the case. Perhaps, months from now, it wouldn’t be—perhaps, if it were months from now, and they were not new and Serana was not afraid, Serana would have helped her. Would have lifted her into her arms and pulled the snow-dampened cloak from her shoulders, unfastened the buckles to her armor and tugged them off piece by piece until Eres was soft and comfortable without them, while Eres peacefully dozed away. Perhaps then, Serana might have pulled the blankets back and tucked her in and climbed in herself and held her as she slept and—a warmth, sprouts in Serana’s chest, thinking of it. Thinking of all the little things the future might hold for them. The kissing is nice, of course. And there might be— _other_ things, in the future, too.

But mostly, Serana looks at Eres and wants nothing more than to do everything in her power to make her happy and content and especially if that means having Eres’ sleepy, soft smile aimed at her; because Eres is softer and warmer when she has her guard down in ways that Serana had not even dared to dream of, had not even _thought_ to dream of, and this is only the beginning.

How much more of Eres is there beneath the surface, behind those walls, that Serana has just not gotten to see yet? How much more of her is there for Serana to discover? Serana is already so hopelessly in love with her that she cannot imagine loving her more, but then she discovers something new and novel and she falls a little bit deeper, a little bit harder. There are a million and one things to love about Eres and Serana wants to discover them all.

Eres returns to bed in a simple tunic and short hose, climbs beneath the covers and then, almost childishly, her eyes barely even open, she raises a hand towards Serana and beckons wordlessly.

 _Come to me_ , she says, without words. _Come here. Be with me, tonight_.

Serana will be with her forever, if she asks. Perhaps even if she doesn’t. Whatever happens, Serana will be there. She can’t imagine herself anywhere else.

Serana moves. She climbs beneath the covers, herself, already feeling the soothing heat radiating from her, encompassing her, long before she even draws her close. Eres kisses her, then, in a way that is soft and sweet and filled with promise. Serana could lose herself in her kisses, if she was not careful.

“Sleep,” she murmurs against her lips, when Eres returns for another. She certainly wouldn’t complain for another, but her desire for Eres to be healthy and rested outweighs her desire for another kiss. “Your mother is probably going to torture you again tomorrow bright and early, knowing her.”

Eres pulls back, wrinkles her nose at her in a way that makes Serana want to grin foolishly back at her. _Cute_ , she thinks, and barely resists the urge to seal this memory with a kiss, too.

“Don’t remind me.”

Eres settles, then, the top of her head naturally coming to rest beneath Serana’s chin, and falls silent. As annoyed as Eres gets at their height difference, Serana is beginning to enjoy it even more than she had before. The feeling of Eres tucked against her is not one she will soon take for granted.

Serana does not ever sleep, really. But there is something about the rhythm of Eres’ heart beat in her ears that lulls her into something a little bit like it. Something like a dozing, a half-waking state where she is both aware and not at the same time. Where the world is far away and quiet and all that exists is her and the girl she loves.

Serana listens to the sound of Eres’ heartbeat begin to slow, always just a tad fast around her, until it evens out, until the sound of her breath begins to deepen with sleep, and Serana herself fades into the serenity of a stolen moment of a slice of paradise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well guys you're officially caught up with what i have pre-written so i will be posting chapters as i finish them now. yeet


	4. Unending Path

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now that i'm updating as i go you guys get to see how i am a demon and tend to have sprees of daily updates for a time and then complete silence for like a week when i get stuck on something lmao but for now we're rolling

Serana comes to awareness in the way one might realize they have been daydreaming - in a slow, gradual manner, as sound again registers in her mind first - Eres’ soft, regular breaths in her ear, her heartbeat, slow and steady, the tick of a clock on the far wall, the whistle of cold wind just outside the window above the bed - and then light, the light of daytime, bright against her eyelids, a slightly uncomfortable tingling dappled across her fingers where the light of morning touches upon it on one hand, streaming in from the crack in the curtains drawn over the window. There is the warmth of Eres pressed against her, warmer than usual with the covers pulled over them both, trapping her heat inside, warming Serana from outside in. Serana feels lazy and languid, an unfamiliar, but not unpleasant, buzz beneath her skin, a strangely peaceful kind of fog in her mind that makes the world feel distant and not-quite concrete. She might’ve stayed there forever, if she had the choice of it.

Then, suddenly, a voice.

“I was not aware vampires can sleep.”

Serana swears violently, startled into full wakefulness. Eres stirs, raising her head to look groggily around her, not nearly as keen when suddenly awakened as someone who does not need to sleep in the first place.

 _“Auria—_ ” Serana starts, her eyes landing upon the woman seated far too comfortably in the seat at the desk situated just caddy corner to the bed. How the hell had she even _gotten_ there without Serana hearing her? How long had she _been there_? Eres, still half-asleep and not quite coherent, mumbles something that sounds like, _“mahn?”,_ which Serana is not even sure is a real word in _any_ language, let alone Alessian.

Auria’s eyes, however, snap to Eres, eyebrows raising high upon her forehead. “What was that?”

Eres squints at her almost unseeingly for a moment, silent. Then, with a groan, she drops her head back to the pillow, mumbling something under her breath. Auria, however, smiles. She even looks at Serana, looking far too pleased, and says, “I _knew_ she remembered.”

“Remembered _what_?” Serana scowls at her. “And what the hell are you _doing_ in here? It’s—” she looks at the clock. For fuck’s sake. “It’s _five in the morning_.”

“Us,”Auria says simply, and stands. She moves, and tears the covers that Eres has wrapped around herself, with little regard at all for how Eres simply rolls over and buries her face in the pillow instead. Serana might have been amused, if Auria hadn’t just _let herself in the fucking room_. While they _slept_. Or—while Eres slept, but that wasn’t the point. It was the principle of the matter. Didn’t she have any respect at all for privacy? “That was very rude, _mikros_ ,” Auria says to Eres. “Who taught you to speak that way?” She says something else, something that most definitely is not Alessian, and that Serana can only guess is Bosmeri. Sadly, out of the few languages Serana does have knowledge of outside of Alessian, Bosmeri is not one of them. She hasn’t the slightest clue of what Auria has said.

Eres merely groans in answer. She takes the pillow and puts it over her head instead, as if hoping to block out Auria entirely.

Serana sighs. Well. That peace hadn’t lasted nearly as long as she’d hoped it would. With more than a little bit of annoyance, Serana climbs out of the bed to pull on her armor. Clearly, Auria isn’t going to take no for an answer. She may as well get ready for the day ahead. “Have you never heard of knocking?”

“She is my daughter,” Auria says, as if that was a matter up for debate. “And perhaps a _college dormitory_ is not the best place if you wish for complete solitude. We have little time left - you must leave tonight, correct? Eres has _still_ not even grasped the fundamentals.”

Serana stares at her, feeling offended on Eres’ behalf. “It’s not even been a full _day._ Did you really expect her to unlearn years worth of magical training in a few hours?”

Auria’s brows snap together, and she sends Serana a look laced with contempt. “ _Obviously_ not,” she answers, voice cold. “But learning the fundamentals is tantamount for her not _killing herself_ the next time she uses magic. Given your feelings for her, I assumed you would also wish her to be safe.”

Serana closes her eyes, pinching at the bridge of her nose. She’s getting a headache. Vampires don’t even _get_ headaches. Auria is just that kind of woman. “You could have at least let her sleep in. She didn’t get back until midnight.”

“And waste more time?” Auria scoffs. “She will be fine for missing a few hours for a day. It won’t kill her. Misusing her magic again however, _may_. _Eresael_ ,” she barks sharply at Eres, who has still not risen from bed. “I will not ask you again. _Get up_. You are far too old to be acting so childishly. Do you _want_ me to embarrass you in front of your—” she glances at Serana, makes a face, and says, “ _companion_?” as if it pains her to say it aloud.

“Alright, already!” Eres, at last, sits up. She sends her mother a particularly heated glare. “Stendarr’s _mercy,_ you’re annoying.”

“I am your _mother_ ,” Auria reminds her, as if that was necessary. “Watch your mouth. You have five minutes to get ready.”

“You’ve been my mother for all of three weeks, calm down,” Eres mutters. Serana resists the urge to hiss in sympathy when she sees Auria’s expression.

“ _Three_ minutes,” Auria amends, and she spins on her heel and slams the door closed behind her as she leaves.

Eres sighs, pressing her fingers against her eyes. “You’d think after sleeping for two weeks straight I could manage going without a couple of hours.” Her hands move from her eyes to her temples. “I already have a headache.”

“Is it that difficult, what she’s teaching you?” Serana asks. She moves to retrieve Eres’ cloak and armor for her. It is not much, but it is the least she can do to make it a little easier on her.

“No.” Eres tugs on the chestpiece, twisting to buckle it at one side while Serana works on the other. Serana moves without thinking, hands already grasping the leather before she realizes what she’s doing, but Eres doesn’t even seem to notice. Or, she doesn’t mind the help. Serana hurries to buckle the fasten before her mind can get too sidetracked. “I mean, yes, sort of—” Eres finishes her side, and sighs, her shoulders sagging with her tiredness. “It’s not _hard_ , really, it’s just—tedious. Mind-numbingly _boring_. For hours.”

“Sounds… dreadful.” Serana actually feels a little bad for her. She can’t imagine what it must be like, to train for something a certain way your entire life only to be told you’ve been doing it _wrong_. How long might it take for Eres to correct that, to undo what she had been taught? Could even Auria’s crash course help her with this, after only a couple days worth of study? Serana would doubt that at any time, but she certainly doubts it more when Eres is already exhausted and preoccupied with, oh, _saving the world_.

But Auria is a force of nature, it seems, and Serana doesn’t think Eres could manage to get away telling her no for anything. Especially not something that posed a danger to Eres herself. Auria wouldn’t allow that. And, as much as Serana does sympathize with Eres, she has to admit—at least in this instance, she agrees with Auria. The sooner Eres learns to control her magic properly, the sooner she will be safe. And Serana will always put Eres’ safety over just about anything. Exhaustion is temporary. Death isn’t.

Eres merely nods. The grey in her eyes today seem almost duller for her tiredness. Serana hates to see it, even despite knowing it is for the best. “At least we get to leave tonight,” Eres says, shrugging. “Auria won’t be able to follow us to Solitude. She has to get back to Fellburg.”

“How is it doing, by the way?” Serana asks. “Did she say?”

“Not much. Just that they’re rebuilding. She refused to talk about anything else but the magic thing.” Eres shrugs. “But there are still a few people who are injured, so… Her healing is indispensable. Mirabelle had to call the students back for the new semester. Besides Miren and your mother, there’s no one else there with any healing experience.”

Serana tsks under her breath. “It’s a shame we can’t use Restoration,” she says, referring to herself and her mother. “Necromancy requires a pretty intimate understanding of anatomy and physiology—if there was a way we could use it without hurting ourselves…”

Eres’ eyes narrow at her. “I think you did enough of that when you decided to grab Dawnbreaker.”

“That was a special case,” Serana says, amused despite herself. That had been so long ago - Eres still worries over that? “And I’m much better now, so it’s alright.” Eres, though, drops her eyes to Serana’s right hand, as if she expects to see the scars there. If Serana is honest, she’s surprised they hadn’t been permanent, as well. She had feared they would be, at first, but by the time she had retrieved her mother from the Soul Cairn, the marks of Meridia’s self-righteous fury had all but faded entirely. Now, even if she looks, she can’t find where the marks had been at all. She supposes she should be grateful Meridia seems to have made some kind of special exception for her.

 _“One minute!”_ Auria calls, from beyond the door. _“Don’t make me come in there.”_

Eres makes a show of rolling her eyes. “Let me go before she has an aneurysm,” she says, and Serana finds herself grinning when she hears Auria’s muffled, _“I heard that!”_ from the other side of the door, followed by Eres’ response of: “You were _meant to_.”

“She’s trying to help,” Serana offers. She does not move when Eres approaches her. It is easier, sometimes, to wait for Eres to make her intentions known. It’s easier, when Serana knows what is expected of her. It’s easier when Serana doesn’t have to second guess herself.

“You can help and still be annoying.” Eres says. But for a moment, at least, the irritation fades from her expression, and she steps into Serana’s waiting arms. “I suppose I’ll be meeting you at the Circle tonight, then.”

“Try not to drain yourself too much. We don’t know what Delphine is going to want us to do once we get there.”

Eres pulls back, makes a face. “Yeah, tell that to _her_ ,” she mutters, and turns to leave. Serana watches her go, and cannot help but feel just a little bit useless. This is one thing she cannot help Eres with, no matter how she might try.

“Shoes.”

Eres sighs. “Really? Again?”

“Yes, _again_ ,” Auria insists. “Shoes, Eresael.”

Eres, holding back a roll of her eyes, bends down to unbuckle her boots, _again_ , and tosses the soles aside. Once again, just as she had the day before, she is left standing, stupidly, on the dirt of the College’s greenhouse floor. “Alright!” She tosses her hands up and lets them fall back uselessly against her thighs. “There.”

Auria looks thoroughly unimpressed with her attitude. “What do you _feel_?” She asks.

“Cold.”

“ _Eresael._ _”_

Eres scowls at her. “I don’t know what you want me to say. You had me stand here for _three hours_ yesterday waiting for me to feel something and it never happened. It doesn’t _work_ , Auria. Can’t we just get to the magic part already and stop wasting both of our times?”

“ _No,_ ” Auria says, carefully slow, speaking to her like she is twelve rather than twenty-four. “Because learning to _feel_ the world around you is how you will learn _‘the magic thing’._ As I told you yesterday.”

“And when it didn’t work yesterday, we moved on to something that did.” Eres tells her. “Once we stopped with all of this.” She gestures vaguely at where they stand, feeling—feeling idiotic, really. She hates this. She hates feeling inadequate. She hates feeling stupid and useless and—and like a failure. Anyone would. “I don’t know what you expected. I wasn’t raised like you. I don’t _have_ whatever you think I have. I’m just—” _Not what you want me to be_ , Eres’ mind supplies, and her heart sinks.

That is the crux of it, really. That’s the worst of it. It’s not _just_ that she’s bad at it. She does hate being bad at things, of course, everyone does to an extent. She does hate it a rather extreme amount given her father had always measured her worth in what value she brought him. On what she could do for him. Being unable to do something that was expected of her has always been one of the worst feelings she has experienced. It was one of many reasons she had such trouble with saying _no_ when people asked for her help. She’s physically incapable of _willingly_ disappointing someone. And even when she can’t help but to do it, it tears her up inside.

What makes it significantly worse is that it is _Auria_ she’s disappointing. It’s her mother she’s failing. Her mother, who is practically a walking epitome of Bosmeri culture, of her elven roots, and Eres cannot even manage the simplest task for her. Not even just failing a task, really. She’s failing at just _being Bosmeri_. At being her mother’s daughter. At being something—something that Auria might have wanted her to be. And she can’t be. And maybe there’s a part of her deep down that fears Auria won’t want her anymore if she _can_ _’t_ be that.

If she can’t live up to those expectations. If Auria can’t _shape_ her into what she wants, what good is she? What guarantee is there that Auria won’t just give up on her? She’d walked away once. She could do it again.

Eres feels the tightness clenching around her throat and tamps it down, shoving it deep where it won’t show on her face. She’s twenty-four. She’s not going to cry over something so stupid. No matter how much she hates it. No matter how much it hurts. She’s always been the type of person to cry sooner from frustration than sadness, but not this time. She won’t let it happen this time. She’s embarrassed herself enough already, thank you. She can always use more fuel to power the negative forces inside her that power her _Thu_ _’um_. She may as well let this feeling be part of that, too. What else could she do with it, besides that?

“Just?” Auria prompts.

Eres tries to shrug. It probably doesn’t come off nearly as casual as she means it to. “I’m just not— _in tune with the earth,_ or whatever the hell it is you expect me to be. I’ve never felt anything from this stuff,” she gestures down at her feet, “and I probably never will. Maybe it’s something only _real_ Bosmer can do, I don’t know.”

At that, Auria’s brow furrows. “ _Real_ Bosmer?” She asks. “Eres, you _are_ Bosmer.”

“I’m _half_ Bosmer,” she corrects her. “I’m only half.”

“Only,” Auria repeats, and she nods, pursing her lips together. “I see. Is this how you feel? That you are not wholly one of us, simply because your father was not?”

“It’s not _how I feel_ ,” Eres mutters. “It’s just the truth of it. Look at the Breton. Their heritage is so diluted you can’t even tell they’re elves anymore. It’s proven that it dilutes—”

“That _what_ dilutes?”

“I don’t know!” Eres throws her hands up again, frustrated. “Whatever it is that makes you an elf. Why are you asking me like I should know?”

“Because you are the one who is limiting yourself.” Auria says, and though her words are stern, her eyes are kind. Eres cannot meet them. For some reason, she doesn’t feel deserving of it in that moment. “You are as much an elf as I am.”

“Clearly not,” Eres mutters. “This stupid _Song_ thing or whatever you’re talking about doesn’t work for me. It never has.”

“Because you’ve never learned to _listen_ for it,” Auria says, remarkably patient given the circumstances. “ _Mikros_ ,” she starts, “allow me to ask you a question. How were your studies, growing up?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Eres asks her, but Auria merely raises her brows, plainly unwilling to continue unless she answers her. “They were fine, I guess. Nothing to really go on about. I had tutors. They taught me things. That’s the end of it.”

“And,” Auria comes to her, directs her to sit upon the floor. Eres hesitates, for a moment, but she is tired of standing around, anyways, so she allows herself to be pulled to the ground. Auria sits just in front of her, seemingly unbothered by the dirt that the off-white of her robes will pick up from the ground. “Which subject was hardest for you?”

“Arithmetic,” Eres answers automatically. “I still don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

“Be _patient_ , and perhaps you will.” Auria says. “What was it about arithmetic that was hard for you?”

Eres shrugs. “It wasn’t, at first. I can do alright with it, sometimes,” she says. “But they tried getting into more abstract things and it just didn’t make sense anymore.”

“And?” Eres frowns at her. “What did you do when it got hard? Did you study harder, perhaps? Ask for help?”

No, to both of those questions. She hadn’t done either of those things. She’d felt stupid and ashamed and she’d just—guessed at things until she could pass them well enough to be done with it. “No.”

“So you gave up.” Auria says, though not unkindly. “When you encounter something that is difficult for you, is that your first instinct?” She asks. “It certainly doesn’t seem very much like you. I know most people would not have the heart for half the things you do on a daily basis. Running headlong into danger. Confronting a Daedra. Walking into Coldharbour…” Auria leads. “Why is it, then, that when it comes to learning something new, you find yourself unable to push yourself to try new things?”

 _Because I can fail at those_ , Eres thinks, but does not say. Because confronting Molag Bal, or walking into Coldharbour - those were things she _had_ to do. There were plenty of times she can remember that she had wanted to give up. That she had wanted to throw in the towel and just turn away from it all. Hell, there are times she feels that way _now_. But others are depending on her to do what she has to do, and so she pushes herself to do them even when she feels like she can’t.

But things like this—these aren’t life or death situations. There’s not a Daedra threatening life and limb if she doesn’t learn to _listen to the Song of the Mother_ as Auria wants her to. She could just avoid using magic for the rest of her life, if she really had to. There are other solutions than this one.

Maybe that was it. Maybe it was because, out of all the other things Eres had been forced to throw herself into, there had never really been an alternative solution. There had just been _do_ or die. She hadn’t had the luxury of choice. Of choosing the easier option. Of deciding it would be easier to give in than to try and fail.

“I don’t know,” is what she says to Auria, though. She doesn’t know how to say all of that out loud. She doesn’t know how to arrange all of those feelings into something that makes logical sense. So she doesn’t try. Another thing that she chooses the easy way out in, she supposes. Because deep down, maybe she’s always been a coward. Just not in the way that other people see.

“I think you do.” Auria says. “And I think I know, as well. You and I are more alike than you realize. When I was your age,” she says, patient and caring and understanding and all of the things Eres feels like don’t belong aimed at her right then. “Well—a little younger than you actually, I think. I had begun an apprenticeship within the healing huts. Though I was a harrier by that time as well, healing magic was indispensible. I wanted to be indispensable,” Auria tells her.

“But I discovered I had a problem. I struggled with things, things that came more easily to the people around me. I started to believe that perhaps I just wasn’t meant for such a thing. If it came so easily to others, and not to me, surely, there must have been a reason. I was just not _meant_ for it. It wasn’t that _I_ was the problem, but the world was - the world that was not bending to my will, becoming what I wished of it. The more frustrated I became with my inability to perform, the worse off I was.”

“And then,” Auria reaches, and she grasps both of Eres’ hands in her own and squeezes them. “The more frustrated I was,” Auria says softly, “the more angry I became at myself. The more I began to _hate_ myself, because I could not do what I felt I should be able to do. And that anger and self-hatred built up, and built up, and eventually there was so much of it inside me that I could not think of anything else but of how much of a failure I felt like. All of the time, I found myself questioning every decision I made. I began to doubt myself in all things I did, even things I _knew_ I could do—because I had convinced myself that I was worthless. All because I had failed at _one_ thing. All because I had not immediately grasped a skill that _everyone_ must practice and learn over time. I had set myself such astronomical expectations that I could have never met them—no one could have. But, when I inevitably failed to meet them, I allowed those feelings to ruin me from the inside out.”

Eres cannot look at her. It sounds too familiar, and Auria knows that it must. How? How is it that they can be so similar? How is that Auria can _know?_ How is it that Eres could have grown to be so much like her when Auria had been missing for most of her life? How is it that Auria can understand her, when sometimes she doesn’t even understand herself?

“You _must_ stop being so hard on yourself, _mikros_.” Auria murmurs. “There is not a man or woman in this world that can do everything without help. All of us need help, sometimes. It is not shameful to ask for it. Nor is it shameful to not succeed at something on the first try. If you fall down, do you lay there and wait for the end to come? Or do you get back up?” Eres does not need to answer that. The answer is obvious. “You get back up, and you keep going. And yes, you will fall again. You will even _fail_ again. But you keep going. You always keep going.”

Auria tilts up her chin, forcing Eres to look at her.

“You are on the Path, my little one. It is the same Unending Path we all walk in life. Sometimes, that path is so dark that it seems there is nowhere else you can go, that there is nothing you can do but stop. But there is always light, somewhere—just down the path. All _you_ ,” she taps Eres’ cheek, “have to do, is keep walking. You will find your way out again. That is the nature of life. That,” she says, “is one of _our_ founding beliefs. Not _mine_ ,” she says. “Ours.”

“Now.” Auria tugs her back to her feet, then braces her hands on her hips. “Try again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's a short chapter this time around but hey. important insight.  
> anyway i think a lot of people can relate to eres here. it's just a shame we don't all have an auria to smack some sense into us.


	5. Radiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this chapter is so long it ran away from me lmao

ACT VII  
CHAPTER V

“Will you ever call me _Maman_?” Auria asks her, tugging her into a quick hug before Eres can protest.

Beneath her feet, the ground hums with the power of the portal. Soon, they will be in Solitude’s Blue palace, transported miles upon miles in a mere instant.

In one hand, Eres holds the letter of escort Mirabelle had drafted for her. A surprise visit to the Blue Palace’s private teleportation chamber after dusk was not a great first impression to make, after all. Mirabelle has made sure that Eres and Serana will not be immediately thrown into the dungeons on their arrival.

“No.” Eres says flatly, hiding a smirk when her mother pulls back to frown at her.

Auria clicks her tongue, shaking her head. “I heard you,” she reminds her. “You’ve already called me maman once. Why not now?”

“Must’ve been sleeptalking.” Eres shrugs helplessly. She has to press her lips together to keep from grinning when Auria’s frown transforms into a full blown scowl.

It’s what she deserves for making Eres miserable these past two days. There is something weirdly entertaining about annoying her mother.

“Ornery little thing,” Auria mutters, and she steps out of the circle with a final, cutting look at her.

“Hm. Reminds me of someone…” Mirabelle says, and she is treated to an even darker scowl from Auria.

To Eres, Mirabelle adds, “Remember: Sybille Stentor is likely to reach you first. She is a damnable woman, but she will respect the letter I’ve given you, at the very least. She owes me a bit of a favor. Just ignore whatever else comes out of her mouth and do not cause a scene.”

“We would never.” The smile Serana adds to that statement makes it sound more disingenuous than not.

“I mean it.” Mirabelle’s expression hardens. “Stentor is not a woman you wish to make the enemy of. Neither is Jarl Elisif. You would do well to keep out of her sights, if possible.”

At that, Auria shakes her head, tugging at the loose braid she keeps pulled over one shoulder.

“Were it in my power to keep you as far away from them as possible…” she murmurs. “I still think it unwise for you to present yourself to the Thalmor, in any capacity. What if they decide that you are their next target?”

“We’ll be fine,” Eres promises her. Seeing Auria fretting is… unusual. Auria has always seemed a little untouchable, a little too well put together for such a thing.

She supposes, if there’s anything that could make a woman like Auria uncertain, it would be Eres’ propensity for causing trouble wherever she goes.

“We’re not planning on catching their attention.” That is, actually, kind of the exact opposite of what they want to do. She hasn’t gone into detail as to what they will be doing, for this very reason, but Auria knows enough to worry over her. “We’re just going to have a look around, that’s all.”

The look Auria gives her makes it plain just how little she believes that plan will work. Still, at her side, Mirabelle nods in their direction, and lifts her hands, and Eres feels the hum beneath her feet grow in intensity as the circle reacts to Mirabelle’s power.

“Stay safe,” Mirabelle says to them. “Are we all prepared? Last chance.”

“Ready to go.” Serana says. By the sounds of it, she’d been ready to go days ago. Eres can’t blame her. “Delphine’s waiting.”

Eres nods, herself, then waves to them. “See you later,” she says. Just as she begins to feel the strange weightlessness of the teleportation spell beginning to take effect, she smirks and adds, “Mother.”

They remain in that space only long enough for Eres to see Auria’s brows snap down with irritation—and then Eres blinks, and her mother is gone, and in her place is a plain, cream-colored wall lit by torchlight, low in the underbelly of what could only be the Blue Palace. Above her, she can hear several sets of steady, regular foot falls punctuated by the clink-clank of plate armor. Guards, patrolling the palace halls above their heads. Somewhere further away, if she strains her ears, she can hear a distant murmuring of several voices in quiet discussion behind closed doors.

“Alright,” Serana says, and she is the first to step off the platform. “Where’s this Sybille Stentor person?”

“Here,” says a cold, calculated voice just behind them. Eres turns, and sees only a figure in dark robes, standing at the other side of the room, hands clasped in front of their waist. “Ervine warned me I should expect company.” That figure steps into the light, and Eres’ mouth drops open. Red eyes, glowing beneath the shadow of a dark hood. “She did not, however,” she continues, “tell me I should expect a vampire in our midst.”

“You’re one to talk,” Serana says, expression tight with distrust. “What’s a vampire doing in the Jarl’s court?”

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know,” the woman purrs. “I suppose a woman of your… stature is used to getting what she desires. I am afraid you will find none of that here. The Volkihar hold no power within this court.”

Serana rolls her eyes. “Enough posturing. My father’s dead. So is the rest of the clan. The Volkihar name has no power anywhere anymore. You can cut it with the prancing about any time now. We just needed the circle. Show us where the exit is and we’ll be out of your way.”

Eres, however, finds herself frowning. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she admits. “A vampire this close to the Jarl?” It doesn’t sit right with her. Something about that feels wrong.

“Please,” Sybille scoffs. “It was I who raised the High King before his reign. You have nothing to fear from me, girl.” She says dismissively. Then, she adds, “For the time being. So long as you don’t get in my way.” Finally, she raises an arm and points. “That way. Up the stairs and to the left. Tell them I sent you.” The smile she sends them is cold. “They’ll be more than happy to let someone out for once.”

Eres, despite how unsettled she feels by this woman, heads for the stairs. She has enough to worry about without adding Imperial politics to the mix. Whatever a vampire is doing in the Jarl’s court, it’s not her problem to worry about. All she needs to worry about is finding Delphine and getting into the Embassy - and whatever would come after that.

It takes them nearly an hour to exit the palace - after a personal guard escort and a short interrogation, that was. Strangely enough, the guard had seemed more concerned with why Sybille had let someone out of her so-called ‘dungeon’ rather than what they had been doing there in the first place. The more Eres learns of that woman, the less she trusts her. She will be glad to never have dealings with that one again.

“We can spend the night at the Winking Skeever and find Delphine in the morning.”

“Charming name,” Serana drawls, following alongside her. “I suppose tomorrow we have shopping to look forward to.”

“I didn’t take you for the type,” Eres admits, eying her.

Serana shrugs. “I’m not. Unsurprisingly, vampires really don’t tend to shop around very often. We had our own tailors, for the most part. Or,” she shrugs, “it’s possible Father just stole them from somewhere. There’s no telling.”

Eres remembers, suddenly, the cistern of Castle Volkihar. And just how many skeletons and rotting corpses she had seen down there. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, just how monstrous the Volkihar clan had been, simply because, in a way, Serana has never seemed like one of them. Even when she does feed, Eres knows her to only go after those who would be killed anyway - bandits, highwaymen, the type of people the world could do with less of. But what kind of people had her clan killed, when they had still been alive? How many innocents had seen their last days at that castle? Perhaps it’s better not to think about it.

So Eres sighs, and turns her mind away from it. “I hate dresses,” she mutters. “They’re so hard to move in.”

“They’re not _that_ hard to move in. They’re hard to fight in.”

Eres shrugs. “Same difference.” Or it might as well be. If she can’t run in it, what’s the point in wearing it? If it wasn’t for this damned party, she’d never wear another dress again. Trousers were far more comfortable. But, when in the Empire… 

When they enter the Winking Skeever to find Delphine and Inigo sitting in a dark corner with an unfamiliar man, Eres wastes no time on small talk. She pulls out her chair, sits, and immediately asks: “Who’s this?”

“Malborn,” Delphine says. As one, the table quites as a serving girl approaches. Too casually, Serana asks for a bottle of Alto Blanc to be brought to the table. The serving girl smiles, dips an awkward imitation of a curtsy, and leaves them to it. Only once the girl is out of earshot does Delphine continue, “This is our man on the inside. Malborn, these are the two I was telling you about.”

Eres looks at him, and finds that he is staring at her with an odd, disquieted expression upon his face. He is a bit older than her, she thinks, though Mer are harder to age at a glance. Still, there is no mistaking the set of his eyes, the slope of his nose, the prominent cheekbones that make his face appear gaunter.

And he recognizes it in her, too. “Sister,” he says quietly, almost reverently. “I… did not expect you would be a kinsman.”

She is not sure what to say to that. It’s not altogether unusual for Bosmer to refer to each other as such, but Eres has never quite felt as though she were one of them. It leaves her feeling a bit unsettled, like there is extra weight upon her shoulders now that he might expect more of her. That he might want more of her, knowing that she is of the same make as he.

“You’re the one who’s getting us inside?” She asks him, instead of responding directly. He nods. Even when he glances at Serana beside her, his eyes drift back to her, lingering. She wonders how rare Bosmer must be in Solitude for him to be so fascinated by her appearance, or if perhaps it is that she is Dragonborn - if Delphine has told him who—or rather, _what_ —she is, his reaction makes a bit more sense.

“I’ll be behind the bar,” he says then. He keeps his voice as hushed as he can while still allowing them all to hear it over the chatter in the tavern. They don’t want to attract undue attention. “I can get a few things inside for you. Essentials. Weapons, and the like,” he says. “But nothing big - anything that would draw too much attention has to be left here. You won’t be able to get inside with weapons on you.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to find your own attire for the party,” Delphine adds. “I wasn’t sure of your size. There’s a shop nearby that sells clothes that ought to blend in well with the crowd there. Radiant Raiment - have you heard of it?”

Eres nods. She had expected as much, actually. She has had dealings with them before. Well, once, at least. One of the sisters there had paid her a fair sum just to wear a dress into the Blue Palace, once upon a time. It had probably been the easiest of the jobs she had taken prior to becoming a Vigilant. She hasn’t got a clue where that old dress went. Knowing her, she’d likely sold it someplace, and even if she still had it, it hadn’t been the type of dress she could have snuck around in easily.

She would have to find a new one, something that she would be able to move in. Something that could at least pass in a high-society sort of setting, while still allowing her to blend in with the servants if she tried. Perhaps she could convince Taarie to find her some sort of layered dress, an outer layer of a more noble make that could hide something a bit plainer beneath it.

“I know one of the women who works there.” Sort of. If one could count running an errand for someone as “ _knowing_ ” them. Serana looks at her, brows raised. “Did a job for them once,” she says, catching Serana’s gaze and shrugging helplessly. “Twins. One of them is almost pleasant. The other…” She finds herself scowling just at the memory of her. Taarie’s sister was the kind of woman who was hard not to hate. Eres couldn’t remember the woman’s name for the life of her - she’d had all of one interaction with that woman and had never wanted to meet her again.

“Good,” Delphine says. “Perhaps it won’t break your bank, then.”

Eres does not share her optimism. She’s seen some of the prices in there. They’re not even remotely within the wheelhouse of what Eres would willingly spend on clothes, no matter how fine they might be. Her purse is going to be very light after this trip. And all of this for a dress she’d likely wear only once, and never again. And she couldn’t even say she would enjoy wearing it the one time. She hates dresses.

“And what happens once we get inside?” Serana asks. “Where exactly is Eres going to be going?”

“That, my friends,” Inigo starts, grinning, “is where I come in. Well,” he shrugs, “where my friends come in. Other friends, that is.” He lifts a hand and reaches behind the chestpiece of his armor, tugging out a piece of folded parchment that he slides quickly over to Serana and Eres. “Inigo knows some very resourceful people.”

Eres, brow furrowing, picks up the parchment and unfolds it. On the parchment is an incredibly detailed, professionally drawn map of what appears to be the Embassy itself. “Where did you even get this?” Eres notes that the map itself is not clearly labeled. There is a large room in one area that Eres can only assume must be where they entertain guests - some kind of lobby or entrance hall, what appears to be a kitchen attached to it, and then the map gets considerably less detailed - but it is still better than nothing. “You know someone in the Thalmor?”

“No,” Inigo says. “But Inigo knows a few people who want to rob it.” At that, Eres looks up, brows raising. Inigo shrugs. “Inigo is lucky he managed to get this for you. He thinks there is another floor, here,” he says, and leans over to point at an area towards one end of the map, far away from the lobby and kitchen. “A basement, he thinks. But Inigo is not sure, and his friend was—well,” he leans back, his expression souring. “He would tell me nothing specific. He did not want to even give Inigo his map, even though he had other copies! He said Inigo would have to do skooma with him to get it.”

Eres frowns. “You didn’t do it, did you?” She doesn’t want Inigo to have started that again for the sake of a bloody map. Helpful as it might be, the map wasn’t worth Inigo’s sobriety.

“Of course not. Inigo is not stupid.” Inigo says. “He pretended and waited until his friend was too high to know up from down. Then he stole it.” He shoots Eres a short grin. “But,” he adds, his grin quickly fading, “we should probably leave Solitude as soon as this is over. Before Inigo’s friend realizes where his map has gone off to.”

“I would say not to make it a habit to piss off the wrong people, but,” Delphine says, shaking her head, “this map is better than anything I could have gotten you.”

Eres folds it again, and tucks it into her own pocket.

“That still doesn’t answer my question.” Serana says. “What happens once we’re inside? What’s the plan, exactly? I hope you’ve got more in mind than just Eres wandering aimlessly until she finds something.”

“Of course we do.” Malborn looks a bit offended. “Once you’re on the inside, I’ll be behind the bar, serving drinks. As soon as we have a moment, I’ll be able to lead you through the kitchens. If you look on that map of yours, you’ll see that there’s a servant’s hall just nearby that leads to the rest of the complex. Most of us aren’t really allowed to use it - just the head servant so they can order us around. But I can get you in there. That’s where I’ll hide your stuff. Then, once you’re through there, that hall leads into the main complex. Work your way through it, and there is a basement there, somewhere,” he says vaguely.

“I’m not sure exactly where, but all the servants have heard about it. They do interrogations down there. If there’s anywhere that might have the information you’re looking for, it’d be there.” But Malborn’s lips pull downward into a frown, his expression deeply troubled. “Problem is, Elenwen will be at the party.”

The moment he says her name, Delphine’s expression turns thunderous.

“Who’s Elenwen?” Eres asks her. It’s plain as day that Delphine knows who this person is. “Should we be watching out for them?”

“Her,” Delphine corrects her. “And yes. Stay as far away from her as possible. She’ll be at the party, but if I were you, I would make it a point not to catch her attention. She’s ruthless, and as sharp as a hawk. If anyone’s likely to notice you don’t belong there, it would be her. And you don’t want that.”

“Trust me,” Malborn adds, “you _really_ don’t want that. The worst stories we hear are all about her. Her and her interrogations,” he mutters. “I’ll do what I can to keep her off you if she starts asking questions. But don’t bring too much attention on yourself. You’re already going to stick out like a sore thumb in there. Most the guests are either Imperials or Altmer.”

“Speaking of,” Eres quiets as the serving girl approaches once more, watches as she pours out several glasses of wine. She does not speak again until the girl leaves. “Do we know this guest list? It would be a problem if anyone there recognized me.”

“Afraid not,” Malborn admits. “I can get you on it,” he says, “but through a favor someone owes me. I couldn’t get a copy of it myself. We’ll have to hope no one there knows who you are.”

“If you see anyone who might recognize you,” Delphine warns her, “I would advise to make yourself scarce.”

“What about your magic?” Inigo asks, looking to Serana. “Couldn’t you disguise yourselves that way, so that no one would recognize you?”

“Absolutely not!” Malborn exclaims. “Altmer and magic go together like bread and butter. They’d know you were using magic to disguise yourselves, and they’d want to know why.”

Serana hums low in her throat, lips pressing together. “I won’t be able to hide either, then.”

“Given Sybille Stentor’s position in the Jarl’s court,” Delphine says, “I don’t think they’ll too much care about you being a vampire. The Altmer don’t seem to mind your kind as much.”

Still, Serana looks doubtful. Eres cannot blame her. Already, the two of them will make an odd sight - a Nord vampire, and a Bosmer dressed up like a high-society noble. One way or another, they’re going to stand out. It will be more difficult to Eres to slip away than they might have planned for. But Eres knows that Serana will not stand for her going inside on her own, and admittedly, she doesn’t know that she would want to. Having Serana nearby as an extra layer of security makes the prospect of spying on the Thalmor less terrifying.

“When is this party?” Eres asks. “How long do we have?”

“Tomorrow night.” Malborn says. “So I’d get some rest. Once you’re ready to leave, meet me here with anything you might want to have slipped into—in there,” he corrects himself. “Remember, it has to be small. Something that can be easily hidden.”

“There will be carriages taking the guests up to the Embassy,” Delphine tells them. “Just by the stables outside the city.”

“And what happens if things go sideways?” Eres asks them.

Delphine’s expression closes. “For both our sakes, let’s pray that they don’t.”

\----

“Oh, what a delight,” sneers a voice as they enter Radiant Raiment the next day, above the sound of a ringing bell announcing their presence. “Another charming customer…”

Eres takes a moment to take a breath. Condescension is perhaps one of the easiest ways to trigger her temper. But she’s certain this sister gets a kick out of pissing people off. She won’t let it get to her. She’s here for a dress, not a conversation.

But her mood only sours further. A dress, of all things. Why couldn’t these high-society parties just recognize that no one enjoyed dressing up so lavishly? She would be a lot happier if she could just go in with her usual armor, maybe a slightly finer tunic underneath. A pair of nice trousers. She’d even wear hose, if she had to. But no, she must wear a dress, because the noble girls wear dresses, and more importantly, so did the serving girls. She’s of course seen more than one woman get away with wearing things other than dresses to such parties, but the servant girls don’t. And so, she must look for a dress. She hates dresses. Reminds her far too much of the Empire. Reminds her far too much of her father, monitoring her every move, insisting she must look pretty for his colleagues when he entertained them.

 _“Not befitting of a woman of your age,”_ he’d say, when she asked to wear something else. Only men got to wear the nice trousers and fitted jackets. The ones where even the finely dressed boys that sometimes joined their parents could still run around and play in them, while Eres was too often stuck wrestling with the voluminous skirts her father insisted she wore. They wouldn’t have been so bad if they still allowed movement, perhaps, but it had seemed as though they had been intentionally crafted so that any woman wearing it would find it too tedious to move around too much.

Eres sees several dresses of that variety here, in Radiant Raiment. The ones with the skirts wide enough to hide several small children beneath them, where Eres as a child had used to entertain herself imagining old fussy women getting stuck in too-narrow doorways their skirts couldn’t fit through. Eres moves past them without more than a glance and a passing sneer. She doesn’t care how much she must blend in. She’s not wearing one of those if her life depended on it.

On a far wall in one corner of the shop, there are dresses that Eres imagines must be a bit more modern, a bit more fashionable. Or, at least, she assumes them to be—she’s hardly one to pay attention to current fashion trends, so preoccupied as she often is with just about everything else except what she’s wearing and whether it’s currently in trend. They do appear—more youthful, however, a bit more fitting. The skirts of these dresses are less purposefully wide and fluffed out and more of a draping, a ruffling sort, of lighter fabrics which at least appear to be easier to move in. Light cottons and linens, and several that even appear to have outer layers made of wool. Unsurprising, given Skyrim’s climate, that even the finer end of clothing would lean towards the more practical compared to the Empire’s frivolous love affair with embroideries and brocades and fancy patterns and silk and satin.

When Taarie seems to manifest at her left side, Eres, somehow, is not even surprised by her appearance. Taarie, like her more condescending sister, seemed to be almost a fixture in the shop, almost to belong to its general ambiance. In some ways, it is stranger to see them outside of the shop than in it.

“Long time no see, my friend,” Taarie practically purrs. “Consider me shocked to find you here of your own accord.”

Taarie’s humor is still biting, but in a way that Eres doesn’t find quite as insulting as her sister’s. She lets the comment slide. “Not quite of my own accord,” she says to her, and Taarie smirks as though she had expected that. Like her sister, Taarie has the same elongated features, the same fine, perfectly coiffed blonde hair and fine clothes, but so much less of the arrogant air that immediately puts Eres on edge with her twin. “I have a bit of an event tonight I need something to wear to.”

“Oh?” Taarie’s brows raise. “Don’t tell me you’ve been invited to the Embassy?” She asks, as if the very thought is inconceivable.

“And if I am?” She asks, frowning at her. She feels a little insulted by the insinuation. “Why is that so unbelievable?”

Taarie’s expression twists. For a moment, she looks very much like someone who has sucked on a lemon. Then her expression clears. “You must admit,” she says slowly, “you don’t seem the type to enjoy such things.”

“Well,” Eres says, “never said I enjoyed them.” She hates them. Doesn’t change the fact she needs a damn dress, though. “How quick can you turn around a tailoring?” She asks of her. “I need a dress by tonight.”

Taarie has the nerve to scoff at her. “Please,” she says, lip curling, “my sister and I can do just about anything.” She gives Eres a once-over that, somehow, makes Eres feel naked despite her many layers and her cloak. “Especially with your body type. You’re quite average. It shouldn’t take too much adjusting.” As if to prove her point, Taarie retrieves a knotted string from around her waist, and she has wrapped it around Eres’ hips, waist, and bust in quick succession before Eres can think to protest it. Taarie clicks her tongue. “You’re smaller than you look, actually. We may have to pinch the waist in, a bit. Do you ever eat?”

“I eat plenty,” Eres scowls at her. Most of the time. When she remembers to. “Can you do it or not?”

“Of course, I can.”

Eres frowns, then, a thought occurring to her suddenly. She peers past Taarie’s shoulder, looking for a head of dark hair. “My—friend,” she says, haltingly—have they put a name to it yet? Have they even talked about that yet? “She needs something, too.”

“Worry not,” Taarie dismisses her with a wave of the hand. “My sister will handle her.” Eres frowns. “She’s got quite the eye. I’m sure your companion will look very fetching. We need to work on you, however.”

“Thanks,” Eres remarks dryly.

“I have some suggestions,” Taarie starts, already pulling her along.

“Oh no,” Eres says. “You’re not putting me into one of those frilly monstrosities. I need something I can move in.”

At that, Taarie turns to face her, brows raising high on her forehead, a twinkle in her eye that makes Eres feel distinctly uncomfortable. “Oh?” She says, and even that one syllable is rife with meaning. “What kind of movement, exactly?”

“By the Divines,” Eres pinches the bridge of her nose. She can feel a headache coming on, and she’s not even used an ounce of magic. “Not like that. I just don’t want to be wearing fifty pounds of cloth or having to wrangle a full-bodied skirt. Just find me something simple I can move around in easily.”

“Hmm…” Taarie considers her. “Anything else?”

“Well…” Eres thinks. Now that she mentions it… “I’d like pockets, in the sides.” She says. “But open, like slits.”

Taarie’s brows rise further. “I thought you said—”

“Not for that,” for fuck’s sake, why was everyone’s mind so filthy all the time? Did no one think of anything but sex at any given moment? “I always carry a blade with me,” she says, “for safety,” she adds, when Taarie doesn’t look convinced. “I’d like to be able to reach it without having to pull the skirts up.”

“Ah,” Taarie nods then, looking like she understands. “I see what you mean. Never you mind,” she tells her. “I can arrange something like that. Now come,” she says, and despite her words, she moves in front of Eres, and with both hands, she places her hands beneath both of Eres’ breasts and pushes them upward. She drops them before Eres has the chance to smack her for it. “Tsk, tsk,” Taarie clicks her tongue with a shake of her head. “We will have to do something about that.”

Then Taarie spins on a heel, dragging her along behind her. Eres, already feeling miserable and more than a little violated, follows behind her with a heavy, tired sigh. She is going to be so glad when this is all over.

——

It takes well over an hour for Taarie to bring her something that Eres doesn’t immediately veto. It takes another half hour for her to get the dress on, counting the time it takes for Taarie to help lace up the bodice that pinches tight around her waist and beneath the bust, something Taarie had absolutely insisted upon.

“It is all the rage these days,” she had said, and pulled it tight enough that Eres had sputtered, just for dramatic effect, it seemed. She had laughed at Eres’ discomfort and loosened it once more to lace it properly. It has been years since Eres has worn anything resembling noble finery, and she had somehow forgotten just how much she had hated it. Or rather, she had forgotten just how very tedious it was to wear it. Anything that takes longer than a few minutes to put on is far too much of a hassle for Eres to bother with.

“Hope I don’t need to bend over at any point,” Eres grouses, when Taarie is tying the final lacing just behind her neck.

“I’m sure your friend can help you with that,” Taarie says, and her eyes gleam wickedly in the mirror at her.

Eres meets them and makes a point to roll her eyes. As if Serana would. They’re not remotely to that point of their relationship yet. They’ve got some time yet before Eres needs to wonder whether Serana would help her undress. Then again, considering how much effort it had taken to get into the damned thing, Eres may not have a choice. The thought of that makes Eres feel distinctly uncomfortable - not because she would dislike it, per se, but more that she is certain that is a step too far too soon.

“Speaking of,” Taarie continues, and she reaches down to straighten the loose skirts. Within them, Eres feels the brush of fabric against bare legs - Taarie had indeed kept to her word and had sliced open the inner pockets to allow easy access for Eres’ hidden blade. She would have to see if Malborn would be able to sneak in a strap to secure it to her thigh, but it would be far easier to sneak that in than Dawnbreaker, or her bow. Hopefully, she will not have need of any weapon while she is in the Embassy, but she feels better for having something than to have nothing at all. “You should ask after her opinion of your new dress.”

“Why?” Eres pulls at the sleeves of her blouse. The sleeves are loose around her arms, with a tight cuff at the wrists. Even so, the loose fabric around her arms feels unusual. Beneath her robes, she has always worn a snug undershirt to ward off the cold. Without it, she feels strangely bare. That is not even mentioning the strange incongruity of wearing more clothes, but somehow feeling more exposed than ever.

Taarie had fitted her with a double-layered skirt, the second layer of a plain, neutral grey that could easily have passed for that of a servant. Above that is a much finer skirt to form the outer layer, of a deep, burgundy red, embroidered with intricate gold trim, matching finely with the cloak Taarie has picked for her of the same make. Eres has not asked the price - she knows she will second guess it if she knows it more than a few minutes before turning over the coin. “I’m not changing again.”

“Fool,” Taarie tuts. “I often find myself wondering if there is anything in that head of yours besides the occasional cobweb.”

Eres scowls at her through the mirror. “We barely know each other.”

“Yes, and _yet_ ,” Taarie insists, raising a pointed brow. “Now, go. And take this with you.”

Taarie tosses the fine cloak around her shoulders and clasps it at her collar with a fine golden brooch.

Eres huffs as she turns to leave the dressing room, her patience having long since worn thin. This, she thinks, is why she hates shopping, and especially for dresses. One could never simply walk into a shop and be out again in a few minutes. Shopping for a dress, putting one on - were ordeals.

To the end of her days, she will likely never understand how noblewomen find it in themselves to go through this level of torture day in and day out. She might have torn her hair out if she was forced to do it more than one day in a row. Even her father had known better than to force her into engagements without allowing her a few days break in between them, and that was her father. Who rarely had sympathy for anyone but himself. That alone just goes to show how very maddening it would be to live like this on the daily.

“I don’t even want to think about how much this is going to cost,” Eres mutters under her breath.

She does not see Serana immediately, but she does spot Endarie’s blond head just near the opposite wall, and beside her, a head of dark hair rising above a row of dresses hanging upon a bar. Her dress alone is going to make her coin purse weep. Then there was whatever Serana had gotten… Perhaps she can spend a bit of time in the Embassy looking for a few things they weren’t likely to miss. She’s hardly a thief, but when push comes to shove…

Serana is tall, but not quite tall enough that she can see the whole of her over the rack of dresses. Endarie, however—Taarie had chattered on about her sister’s attitude quite a bit in the dressing room, and therefore Eres at last knew the damnable woman’s name—does step out from behind the rack to wave her over. She even looks mildly impressed by Eres’ appearance as she approaches.

“Well,” she says to Eres, when she is within a polite distance, though they all would have been able to hear each other regardless, “it seems you _do_ have some woman in you, after all.” She says, crossing her arms over her chest. “It is a shame that Taarie did not think to train you to walk.”

“I can walk,” Eres mutters. Sure, she’s not quite as graceful with riding boots on, but she’s not tripping over herself at least. Even the inch it gives her in height doesn’t put her equal to Endarie, who, as all Altmer, is quite tall. Altmer women were near as tall as Nords, though Endarie and her sister are slight enough that Eres has wondered if they have a bit of mixed heritage in them somewhere down the line. Serana beats both by several inches, but that is not altogether unusual. Serana is taller than most women Eres has met, and quite a few men, as well.

“Not correctly,” Endarie tuts, clicking her tongue against her teeth. “At least not in that.” She lets out a weary sigh. “Ah, well. I suppose we can’t all be blessed with such grace.”

Eres favors the woman with no more than a short glare. Endarie’s constant ribbing is hardly worth responding to - her wit is as sharp as her tongue, and even if Eres had come up with something to snap at her, Endarie likely would have found some way to turn it against her. Endarie makes Serana look gracious, and that was saying something.

When Eres at last steps around the rack so that she can see Serana, she is assaulted with such a conflicting barrage of emotions that she stops, mid-step, and merely stares at her.

On one hand, the very first thing she feels is irritation - because of course Serana would get to wear pants for this, like Eres had wanted to but could not. And of course, she would look amazing in them, because her legs are absurdly long and she’s too goddamned tall for her own good. There is a part of her that is irritated, and even perhaps a little bit envious - she would have liked to go in pants. A pair of fine trousers would have been so much easier to sneak around in than a dress, no matter how much Taarie might have altered it to make it easy for her. But there is a much, much larger part of her that is assailed by just how very good Serana looks in it—and she’s not even fully dressed.

There Serana stands, in naught but simple white blouse and high-waisted, snug-fitting black trousers, and all Eres can think of is that the world is very unfair and also her—girlfriend? Lover? —is very, very attractive. Eres would not have thought it for looking at her, but the style fits Serana quite well. Even without the overcoat, which Serana still seems to be deciding on. Serana, who is staring at her in much the same way that she is staring at Serana. Except, perhaps, without the underlying irritation.

Serana blinks. “You look… different,” she says, and Eres’ brow furrows.

“Thank you?” Eres doesn’t even know if that’s a compliment. She does see the glance Serana shoots Endarie and decides not to take it personally. Serana is even more private a person than she is. She shouldn’t be surprised she would be more close-lipped in front of company neither of them is familiar with.

“Oh, for the love of Mara,” Endarie sneers at them. “You’re not fooling anyone.” To Eres’ infinite surprise, the woman directs her scowl at Serana. “Just tell her she looks pretty and be done with it. I still must fit your coat. Once you _pick one_.”

Seeing the discomfited look upon Serana’s face, Eres chooses for her, pointing at a fine overcoat of a near-identical shade of burgundy to her dress, with black and gold trimmings. The other option had been red-on-black, but well, “You look enough of a vampire without wearing all black in there.”

“I like black,” Serana mutters, but she accepts the coat from Endarie and pulls it on.

“You’re going to a party, not a funeral,” Eres tells her. “If you like the black one that much, we can come back for it later.”

Eres certainly won’t complain. It looks quite nice on her, fitted as it is. Even without whatever adjustments Endarie must make to it, Serana looks positively sharp in it. The cut of the overcoat accentuates her long torso, and pulls in just enough at the waist to flare out just a bit at the hips that it could not be mistake for a man’s coat - though Eres is not convinced Serana could not also manage to look good in that.

Her bust is a bit too endowed to wear men’s clothing, Eres thinks, even without her usual bodice, but let it not be said that Serana could not make anything look fashionable. Perhaps it some sort of vampiric ability to look gorgeous no matter what one is wearing. Eres has even seen Valerica make a lectern’s severe uniform look somehow fashion-forward. It must be innate.

Endarie, however, tuts under her breath. “As if you could afford it.”

“I have a knife,” Eres says, pointedly. She doesn’t have it on her, currently, but she can certainly go get it. Endarie is a woman that might do well for a nice stabbing or two. “You’d think someone of your class would have some manners.”

“Oh, I have manners,” Endarie meets her eye and smiles tightly. “They are just reserved for those who are _worthy_ of them.”

“I’ve learned to ignore her,” Serana drawls, almost lazily. She focuses on fastening the front of her coat rather than replying to Endarie’s constant jibes. “Imagine how boring her life must be, that this is her only form of entertainment.”

From the sneer Endarie directs at Serana, she might not actually be far off. Eres shakes her head. She could handle Taarie - Taarie, at least, seemed to have her heart in the right place, if not her words. Endarie, however, just seemed to be a raging bitch for the sake of being a bitch. Eres would love nothing more than to wipe the sneer from her face one day.

“I’ve heard worse,” Eres admits, and decides that yes, she is going to ignore Endarie. It is probably healthier for her blood pressure. That, and watching Serana finish dressing is much more interesting. “My father could make her look like a chihuahua.”

Serana pauses, looks at her. “What the hell is a chihuahua?”

“Small dog,” Eres says, and mimes its approximate size with her hands. “Thinks it is a lot bigger than it is. Also, may or may not be demonic in nature. Jury is still out on that one.” She shrugs. “For some reason, the old ladies in the capital loved them. Must be they reminded them of themselves.” She looks at Endarie. “Perhaps you should look into one.”

“Ha, ha,” Endarie drawls. “You’re a real riot, aren’t you.” She sticks a pin almost violently into one shoulder of Serana’s coat. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and square away the bill. The sooner I get this done, the sooner you can _leave_.”

“Gladly,” Eres says, and leaves them to do just that. She does not catch the lingering glance Serana shoots at her back.

——

“ _Finally.”_

Serana ignores Delphine’s exclamation. She can’t even bring herself to be annoyed at Delphine when there are so many men in this room she’d like to castrate. Did all of them have to gape at Eres like that? If she were any other vampire, she might have taught them all a lesson about showing some proper respect—but she is not a savage and has never been one. Much as the thought of doing so now is cathartic.

She cannot consider herself to be altogether surprised. Eres may not realize it half the time, but even dressed down in her shoddy Vigilant robes, she had still managed to turn the occasional head. Not that Eres had ever seemed to care or notice it. It just so happened that her robes and armor tended to hide the femininity of her figure, and if that did not do it, Eres’ resting expression was frosty enough that most did not bother with her.

That expression had far less of an effect when paired with a dress of such fine make, especially one that, rather than hiding her curves, accentuated them, leaving just enough to the imagination that she became a temptation rather than a dissuasion. Serana had expected some looks, of course—men stared at her often enough, and she is far less approachable in general than Eres seems to be. She had not, however, considered just how many men in a tavern like the Winking Skeever lacked even the most basic of manners. They leer at Eres as if she is no more than a common serving girl, free for them to flirt and touch how they please.

It is just luck, then, that Serana is with her, and Serana is just enough to dissuade any of them for trying it. If they had, she might have broken arms. Or worse.

It only takes them a couple of minutes to reach the table Delphine and the other sit at, and Serana is already irritated by the time they get there. She can only hope that the guests at this so-called soiree at least have the decency to hide their leering.

“Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you?” Malborn mutters. “I have to get back to the embassy before the party kicks off. I was going to have to leave without your stuff if you didn’t show up soon, sister.”

“Sorry,” Eres says. She pulls out her own chair and sits in it. For some reason, dressed as they are, Serana almost feels as though she should have pulled it out for her. Is that a thing? Is she supposed to do that? “Radiant isn’t exactly an in-and-out kind of shop.” Eres grabs at a tankard that has already been set in front of her seat, brings it up to her nose, sniffs, and sets it back down with a huff. It’s a lot harder to parse smells in a place as stuffy and cramped as the Winking Skeever, but Serana would be the last of their coin whatever was in that mug was alcoholic. Eres has never really enjoyed alcohol, despite how common it is in Skyrim.

“Did you bring your things?” Malborn asks her.

Serana does not much to offer to this conversation. She feels not unlike a piece of wall decoration, in a way. She is already starting to feel that anxiousness beneath her skin, knowing that Eres is heading into danger without her help. Yes, she will be in the same building, but Eres will be taking on the brunt of the danger by herself. If anything were to happen to her, it would take time for Serana to reach her, even with her vampiric speed. She doesn’t like to think of the possibility that even that might not be enough, in the worst-case scenario. Instead, Serana spends her time glaring at the men nearby.

From her backpack, Eres digs out a collection of what appears to be leather strips, and a fine dagger sheathed in black leather. Serana, looking at it, raises her brows. “What’re you going to do, strangle someone?”

Eres glances at her, rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Hopefully not,” she says. “Though it probably would make a good garrote, now that you mention it.”

Eres eyes the leather strips almost thoughtfully, as though only just considering how it might be used for murder. Serana finds herself smirking, amused. Eres lifts the collection of leather to reveal that it is not just a collection of unattached strips, but rather an assortment of leather straps and buckles, which Serana can only guess at the purpose of. She’s certain she arrives at the right conclusion when Eres pats her thigh.

Eres turns to discuss the matter with Malborn - on how she might blend in with the servants, that her dress is layered, and she may be able to take the top layer off to blend in more discretely, but Serana’s mind has already wandered. Eres’ resourcefulness is nothing new to her, of course. But Serana finds herself looking at Eres in a way not so dissimilar to the men, and it takes what feels like several minutes for her to even realize it. Serana snaps her eyes away from Eres’ legs—she can’t even see them, beneath those skirts, and yet—and focuses on the wall somewhere behind Malborn’s head. She’s better than this.

She’s _better_ than this. She’s better than—than leering at a woman, no matter what their relationship might be. What right did she have to look at Eres in such a way? What kind of person was she, that they’d only first kissed days prior and now she’s thinking of such things? And that was not even counting what had happened in Radiant Raiment - Eres looked like that, and Serana hadn’t even been able to tell her. She hadn’t even been able to say the words, let alone think them.

Her mind had drawn a complete blank as soon as she’d seen her, and then she had tried to be casual, but she had come off cold and indifferent and yes, she is still kicking herself for that. What had happened to the Serana who had been able to flirt with Eres so easily when they’d first met? Why could she not find it in herself to be that way now, half the time, when it mattered? Why did she keep freezing up the way she did? Why couldn’t she just say what she felt? How hard would it really have been for her to tell her she looked beautiful?

How hard would it have been for her to just say, _‘Oh, yes, that dress looks very nice on you’_? From the lump in her throat, one would have thought it would have been impossible. Serana had looked at her and forgotten how to speak. Even now, looking at her—looking at Eres felt somehow—somehow _wrong_. Like she is wrong for finding her beautiful. Like there is something terrible about looking at her in such a way, like she’s—it feels, somehow, like she doesn’t have the right to. Out of anyone, she knows, that logically she should: She should have the most right to look at Eres, and yet…

She cannot help the sinking feeling in her chest when she finds herself staring for too long, the pit of dread opening there like it belongs right next to that strange airy feeling in her stomach. One is almost pleasant, if a little uncomfortable. The other feels like she’s being eaten up from the inside out. It feels almost like when she’d killed for the first time after her turning.

She hadn’t meant to kill her first. _Practice moderation, in all things,_ her mother had taught her, and so Serana had tried. She had wanted to only take enough to satisfy her hunger, and no more than that, and then she wouldn’t have to kill anyone. But the hunger had overwhelmed her, and when she had come to herself again, the man had been limp in her arms, already beginning to stiffen with the cold embrace of death she had inflicted upon him.

And in that moment, she had felt it; that same sinking pit of dread inside her, of guilt, of feeling like she truly was the monster within her, like she could never be human again no matter how much she tried—she was His creation, and she could be nothing else. She had shut herself in her room for weeks afterward. It had taken her mother’s interference for her to feed again before she had shut down from the lack of blood, and even then, she had hated herself for it. Every time she’d fed, she had hated herself a little more.

Over time, of course, Serana had gotten over that. She had practiced her control until she could go weeks without feeding and still stop herself before killing. Within just a year, Serana’s restraint had grown to the point that none in the Volkihar clan could outmatch her. Her strength of will had been one of the only things Harkon had ever commended her for, even despite how silly he thought her conscience had been.

 _“What need have we for guilt, my daughter?”_ He would ask her. _“We are merely taking what is our God-given right.”_ He’d said, like they had been anointed by some higher, benevolent being. Rather than Molag Bal. Rather than something that was pure evil.

Every time that Serana finds herself reminded of how much of _Him_ is inside her, she feels that same sinking guilt as before. It has been a long time since she had felt that. At least before, she could identify the cause—at one time, she had felt guilty because she had killed unnecessarily, when she could have showed restraint. She learned restraint, and she no longer felt guilt.

At one time, she had felt guilty because she could not be what her father expected of her, because she was not thankful for her so-called “blessing” as so many of them were. She had felt ungrateful for the “gift” she had been given, the same gift both she and her mother had sacrificed themselves to gain—and so she had felt guilt then, too, and over time, she had learned to push even that way from the forefront of her mind. Soon after, she had been entombed to thwart her father’s plans.

And then, she had met Eres.

And now she feels it again, and the problem is that she can’t quite discern _why._ Is it just that it feels as though it is too soon? There is that, possibly, but if Serana thinks about it, they have been dancing around each other for the better part of a year. Perhaps they had only just kissed, yes, but Serana cannot think of a single person who would judge them if they moved quickly after. They had spent so long getting to this point despite that they both had known what they had wanted. When she thinks about it, there is no reason for her to feel guilty for that. That is only what can be expected of two people who have been walking a tightrope for so long only to find solid ground beneath their feet. Of course, they would want to run instead of tiptoeing along as they always have. It was only logical.

So why, then, does she still feel as though she is somehow _wrong_ for desiring her? If there is anyone who has the right, it is her. But even when she thinks that, she feels a little sick on the inside. She feels just a little bit monstrous. Just a little bit too close to the vampire that exists within her, the thing without morals and conscience and only wants.

Is that why it feels wrong, to her? Is it just that her waking self has arrived at the same conclusion that her vampiric self had wanted since her first taste of Eres’ blood? That seems like too simple an explanation. Serana could not have pointed at the real reason, but somehow, she knows it is not so simple as that.

“So, it’s settled, then.”

Serana blinks. She has missed an entire conversation, lost in her thoughts.

“Malborn,” Delphine says, and Malborn nods.

Malborn stands. “I’m heading off. They’ve already got carriages lined up outside the stables for the guests,” he tells them. “They move slow, through this snow. Remember,” he says to Eres, “I’ll be behind the bar. Come find me once you get inside.”

Beside her, Eres nods. “We’ll see you then.” Malborn bids farewell to the rest of them, ducking off with a bundle of fabric held to his hip that Serana can only guess must be the gear Eres has asked him to stow.

“How far is the Embassy from here?” Eres asks Delphine.

“A couple of hours, by foot.” Delphine says. “Longer than that by carriage.”

“Longer?” Inigo echoes.

“The wheels don’t do so well in the snow up in the mountains,” Delphine explains. “If you want to make it to the party on time, you’ll have to leave now.”

To her credit, Eres at least waits until they are inside the carriage and well away from the others to interrogate her.

“Is something wrong?” She asks. Serana manages to hold her gaze for a moment, before that feeling yawns open in her chest again, and she must look away. “Serana.”

“It’s nothing.” Serana turns to look out of the window as the carriage begins to move, slowly edging its way through the light dusting of snow on the cobblestone streets. It’s not nothing, but it’s also not something she knows how to put into words. “Just feeling a bit off, is all.” That’s all she can really offer, now. It’s not good enough. She knows it’s not good enough, but it’s all she’s got.

Eres takes her hand, then, and silently holds it between both of her own. Serana rests her head against the side of the carriage and tries to focus only on the warmth, the warm skin pressed against her own, the warmth of Eres’ care for her—and not, for example, the fact that Eres has pulled Serana’s hand into her lap, and that her hand is resting just over one of Eres’ thighs in her skirts. She has seen Eres in less, she tells herself. This is nothing. She shouldn’t be so affected by it. She certainly shouldn’t be feeling the way that she is about it, either. She just needs to stop thinking about it.

The carriage ride is both blessedly silent and a bit more awkward than Serana had expected. She did not have any specific expectations for the ride itself, but she had not expected it to be so quiet. The more she thinks about it, the more strained the silence feels, and the more annoyed she becomes with herself.

 _Things are not strained,_ she tells herself. _You’re_ making _it strained_.

If she could just stop worrying over such stupid things, it wouldn’t feel so strange between them now, and perhaps they might even manage to have a bit of a good time before Eres has to throw herself into danger again. It is that, more than anything, that brings Serana out of it by the time they arrive. Eres has enough to worry about without adding Serana’s mood swing to her plate. Serana should be making this easier for her, not harder.

When they arrive, Serana climbs out first, and turns to help Eres down. The guilt in her sinks lower still when Eres looks a little surprised at the gesture, like she had not expected it. Like maybe she had expected Serana to wallow in her own misery the entire time, ignoring her.

“Sorry,” Serana says to her, voice low. “I just got to thinking about something and it put me in a bad mood.” She hopes that is enough. It is all she knows how to explain, at this moment. She almost expects Eres to doubt her, to interrogate her further.

But Eres only nods. Serana sees the concern in her eyes, but she does not push.

“Tell me,” she says, “when you’re able.” Eres shrugs, then, looks away from her. Even in the dim light of pre-dusk, the reflection of the sun upon the snow makes her eyes look almost silver rather than grey-blue. “Maybe after all this is over, I suppose. Back at the inn.”

Serana does not know if they will spend the night at the inn tonight, if she is honest. She expects that somehow, someway, something will go sideways, and they will likely have to leave Solitude in a hurry. But, the details of where the conversation happens are not as important as the when. As the promise that it will happen, when this is over, and they have time to address it. And maybe Serana has some time to figure out what the hell it all means, for herself.

“Alright,” she says simply. Even so, she cannot help but to brush away the snow that falls upon Eres’ dark hair. “Focus on what you have to do tonight,” Serana tells her softly. “Don’t worry about me.”

Eres shrugs helplessly. “I’ll worry about you either way,” she says.

Unassured, Serana frowns at her. “Eres—”

“I’ll be safe. Promise.” Eres sends her a smile, then, and there is something about it that is a little mischievous. Serana catches the glint in her eye and sees nothing but trouble on the horizon. “When am I not?”

“How about ever,” Serana mutters, but she cannot help the fondness that grows in her chest all the same. Eres has a tendency not just to find trouble, but to make it where it doesn’t exist. And Serana wouldn’t have her any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couple things here:  
> 1\. Bodice - this is basically what the corset-looking thing in Serana's default armor is. It's called a corset or a stay when its under the dress, depending on the time period. When it's over the dress it's considered a bodice. If you want an idea of what Eres is wearing, google "outlander lass costume", and the inspiration is the first result. Just. Nobler. As for Serana I don't have a specific example but maybe I'll make a pinterest or something at some point for it.  
> 2\. Their outfits aren't super important, but I admit I've always wondered on others' perceptions of both Serana and Eres as far as personal style goes, or I suppose the reductive "top/bottom" discourse goes, if you want to get basic. This decision has less to do with top/bottom and more to do with practicality. Eres I think is explained well enough in the chapter. As for Serana, her default armor, aside from the corset and the boob window, is actually a bit more on the casual/"masculine" side (loose pants and a loose tunic). That, added to that victims often tend to be more on the conservative side, added to my decision to put her in a more androgynous outfit, as I personally can't really picture her wearing a dress. That and I found a pic of some high-waisted renaissance trousers on pinterest and couldn't Not put her in them.  
> 3\. we stan communication and respect in this house aka don't worry they'll talk about it


	6. Diplomatic Immunity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i considered splitting this into two chapters but. nah.

Walking into the Thalmor Embassy feels far too much like waltzing directly into a troll’s den. Eres feels eyes on her from every angle, including those she had most wanted to avoid. She knows it the moment she is spotted, and she also knows that there is no convenient escape for her. Eres forces herself to be calm, forces herself not to reach for Serana’s hand as the woman approaches. She knows, without introduction, that this tall, imposing woman could be none other than Elenwen, the very woman that Delphine had warned her about. The very woman she is meant to avoid.

“Welcome,” the woman purrs, her voice saccharine sweet, a polite smile upon her lips that does not reach her eyes. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I am Elenwen, Thalmor Ambassador to Skyrim. And you are…?”

Eres calls upon the manners instilled in her from birth, and pastes a pleasant, practiced smile upon her lips. “ _You_ _’re_ Elenwen?” She asks, injecting just the perfect amount of awe into her voice - not too much as to seem like over-the-top flattery, but just enough to be disarming. She hopes. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Have you, now?” Elenwen’s eyes rake over her, and Serana beside her. When she returns her gaze to Eres, it is no less critical. “All good, I trust,” she continues, voice deceptively pleasant. “But you have me at a disadvantage. I’m afraid I know nothing about you… Please, tell me more about yourself. What brings you to this… to Skyrim?”

Eres keeps her expression neutral. What had Elenwen been about to say that she had corrected? What brings her to _what_ , exactly?

She is just about to open her mouth to respond when a familiar voice cuts in. “Madame Ambassador!” Calls Malborn, from the bar not far to Eres’ right. If she had only managed a few steps more, she might have been able to avoid Elenwen entirely. “I’m so sorry to interrupt…”

Elenwen sighs. When she looks at Malborn, her expression is decidedly much less pleasant. Much colder. “What is it, Malborn?”

“It’s just—It’s just that, we’ve run out of the Alto wine,” Malborn stammers out. Eres swears the man looks like he’s going to start sweating just from Elenwen looking at him. Just how terrified of Elenwen _is he_? “Do I have your permission to uncork the Arenthia red—”

“Of course,” Elenwen says tightly. “I’ve told you before not to bother me with such trifles—”

Eres sends Malborn the tiniest of nods that she hopes he catches, and slips away while Elenwen is distracted with dressing him down.

 _Thanks, Malborn_ , she thinks, wincing internally. That woman sounds like a force of nature. Eres had _not_ liked being under her scrutinizing gaze. With a woman like that, it would have only been a matter of time before she had noticed that something was off about Eres, and then their little mission would have been over before it had even begun. Only once they are well out of earshot does Eres let out the breath she has been holding.

“So _that_ _’s_ Elenwen,” Serana murmurs, leaning close to speak into her ear. “I can see why she told you to avoid her.”

Eres nods. The feeling of Serana’s breath against the shell of her ear is a bit too distracting in this place. She’s going to have to talk to her about that—later. When they have a moment to themselves. And maybe she’ll be able to get something out of Serana in the meanwhile, about the strange mood she’d fallen in earlier.

“Problem is,” she mutters back over her shoulder, “now we have to wait for Elenwen to be done with him.” With a glance back, it seems that Elenwen is _still_ going at him. It may take some time before they’re able to put their plans in motion.

“Wonderful,” Serana drawls. “I suppose now we have to mingle.” Wordlessly, she lifts a flute of champagne from a passing servant’s tray as though she belongs there. When Eres raises a brow at her, Serana asks, “What?”

Eres just shakes her head. This kind of place, this kind of company—Serana seems to blend in almost a little _too_ well. Either that, or Serana is just much better at adapting to new situations than she is. She still feels out of sorts and out of touch. Her dress is not so out of place compared to other women she’s spotted, and still she feels both underdressed _and_ overdressed, somehow at the same time.

“Do you think that’s a good idea tonight?” Eres asks.

Serana, almost pointedly, takes a sip. “Alcohol doesn’t affect me,” she says simply. “It would take an entire barrel of this to get me drunk. I just like the taste.” She shrugs, then. “Well, I like it _enough_ , anyways.” Compared to blood, she doesn’t need to say aloud.

“Good to know.” _Vampires,_ Eres thinks, scoffing internally. Of _course_ they’d be immune to alcohol, too. Were there _any_ downsides to being a vampire? Well, besides the whole sun thing, but even that didn’t seem to bother Serana too much. More and more, Eres is starting to wonder why she’s never wanted to be one. Sure, she’d miss the taste of food, but think of all the _benefits_.

Serana smirks at her. There’s a light in her eyes, now, an amusement, a certain kind of ease, that hadn’t been there on their ride here. Whatever mood Serana had been in, it seems to have faded. Eres is glad to see it, though she will not soon forget how quiet and contemplative Serana had gotten in the carriage. She hadn’t seen Serana act that way since just before they’d left to fight Harkon. Whatever had gotten Serana down, Eres is sure that it had to have been something quite serious.

Serana looks over her shoulder, back towards Malborn. “It looks like—”

“Eres?” Comes a voice, a voice that sounds both familiar and not. Eres’ brow furrows as she turns to look for its owner. “Eres _Svanhilde_?”

——

“Eres _Svanhilde?_ ” The flute of wine pauses just inches from Serana’s lips. It strikes her, in that moment, that she had never actually _known_ Eres’ surname. She is just about to ask who might have known Eres so intimately at this party when a man wades out of the crowd to approach them, a disbelieving smile upon his face.

All things considered, he is not an unattractive man. He is easily as tall as Serana herself, built leanly rather than overtly muscular. He has a shock of dark hair arranged messily upon his head, and green eyes that contrast sharply with the deep tan of his skin. He is, as any other guest in the room, dressed sharply, in a combination of reds and silvers and blacks, and his face is clean-shaven and youthful. He could not have been more than twenty-five, perhaps thirty at the absolute oldest, and from a cursory glance, Serana could only place him as Imperial, perhaps Breton if she pushes it. Serana’s eyes narrow at him as he moves ever closer, as his grin widens—he seems _far_ too thrilled to see Eres for her liking.

Eres, who stares at the man like she’s seen a ghost.

“As I live and breathe,” he exclaims as he closes in on them, and he looks like he might even lean in to embrace her, but Eres throws her hand out to press against his chest and push him roughly backward. The shellshocked look on her face snaps into a dark scowl. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember?” He asks, looking almost wounded.

“Oh, I remember.” Eres mutters, her scowl deepening. “I remember you _left_.” The man winces. “I also,” she says, and her tone turns to something far too flippant to have been genuine, “seem to recall thinking you were dead.”

“Alright, alright,” the man raises his hands into a defensive gesture. “You’re mad.”

“You’re fucking right, I’m _mad_ , Claude, what the hell? Even your _parents_ never heard from you!”

“Who is this?” Serana cuts in, before Eres can make more of a scene than she already has. She steps closer to Eres, even so, immediately finding herself wary of whoever this man was.

“This,” Eres tells her, and when she glances at Serana, Serana can see the anger in her eyes, the fire behind them. “Is _Claudius,_ _”_ the man grimaces at the name, _“_ Amadeo,” she finishes, and the smile she shoots him is ice-cold. “My best friend. _Once._ ”

“Come on, Eres,” he says, deflating. “I was in the Army. I’m _still_ in the army.”

“Last I checked, the Army doesn’t forbid you from sending a gods-damned letter once in a while,” Eres snaps at him. “Do you know your parents almost had a funeral for you? _Everyone_ thinks you’re dead, Claude.”

“I was busy,” Claude defends himself. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s a _war_ going on.”

“There wasn’t a war eight years ago,” Eres points out, without mercy. “You’re just an asshole.”

Claude, bracing his hands on his hips, sighs at her. “Is she like this with you?” He asks, looking to Serana as though he knows her. “Tell me she’s gotten better about that.”

Serana feels her mood darken further. “She’s not,” she says, her tone clipped. “Probably because I’m not an asshole.” Wordlessly, Eres turns, and grabs the flute from Serana’s hand. Serana allows it, watching her drain what remains of it. She would be worried, if it weren’t for the rage she can feel radiating off the woman beside her. Eres is _furious_ , and it’s probably better for her to have something to cool her nerves a bit before she explodes, even if it does happen to be alcohol.

Claude, awkwardly, clears his throat. “Well, uh…” he says, and scratches at the back of his neck. “Look, I’m sorry about all that. I really was busy—between training and the war, and everything else, it just—it just slipped my mind, alright? I figured you’d forget about me, anyways. Your father always did say you’d be better off without me around.”

“As if my father ever had anything good to say.” Eres says flatly. “You’re full of shit.”

Claude sighs. “Let’s just start this over, then.” He reaches out a hand, more to Serana than Eres. “Hi,” he says, “I’m Claude. Eres and I grew up together.”

Serana does not shake his hand. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

“Al _right_ ,” Claude pulls his hand back. “Cut the small talk then, I get it. That’s fine.” His somewhat boyish, easy-going facade drops away. Now, his eyes are hard, his expression serious. “What the hell are you doing here, Eres? I _know_ you’re not supposed to be here.”

“None of your business. What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

Claude jerks his head in a nod, indicating someone just across the room. “General asked me to come with him and take notes on the people he meets. Can’t remember a damned thing to save his life.” But his eyes remain firmly on Eres. “Now answer the question.” He leans in, lowering his voice. “I saw the guestlist a few days ago, Eres. Your name _wasn_ _’t on it_. So how the hell did you get in here, and what _for_?”

“Like I said,” Eres says coldly, “it’s none of your business.”

“Eres, if you’re in trouble—” Eres scoffs at him, but he barrels right on, “If you got yourself involved with the _Rebels_ , I swear—”

“The _Rebels_? Do you even hear yourself when you talk?” Eres crosses her arms over her chest. Serana does not miss the way his eyes drop to follow the movement. It is a good thing, suddenly, that Eres had taken the glass from her. She might have shattered it over his head. “What the hell would _I_ be doing with the Rebels? In case you haven’t noticed, they aren’t really that fond of my kind.”

Claude huffs. “I don’t _know_ , Eres, but you won’t tell me why you’re here and I _know_ you’re not supposed to be here, so excuse me for being just a _little_ off base here.” His eyes narrow, and when he speaks again, his voice is hardly more than a whisper. “Out of anywhere you could have gone, you should’ve known this is the last place you should’ve come to.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Eres turns, seeming to look for Malborn, but Claude grabs hold of the crook of her arm and pulls her so close that Serana has to resist the urge to snap his neck.

“ _Eres_ ,” he hisses, “that general I came with? General Romulus. Also known as, the guy who wanted your father _dead_.”

“That has nothing to do with me.” Eres snatches her arm away from him, but Serana can tell even through the impassive mask she wears that the comment has unsettled her. What had Eres said her father died of? Had it been natural causes? Had there been suspicions in his death at all? Serana couldn’t remember if Eres had ever told her. “And I’m not going to be here for that long. You can go back to pretending you didn’t have a life before the army any moment now.”

Claude’s face twists with his frustration. “ _Bloody_ —” he starts, sees Serana’s expression, and his mouth shuts so quickly she hears the click of his teeth coming together. “Listen, I’m trying to _help you_. Just tell me why you’re here and maybe I can help you actually get out without catching his attention.”

“Romulus doesn’t even know what I look like.”

Claude’s expression closes. The look he gives Eres then makes even Serana’s ire give way to discomfort. “You’d be surprised,” he says quietly. “You look just like your mother.”

It is that, more than anything else Claude had said, that makes Eres freeze. “What?”

“You heard me.” Claude looks at her with something almost like pity. “He’s got these files,” he says lowly. “All these journals about his time in Valenwood. There’s drawings in them. A lot of them. They looked like you—I knew they couldn’t _be_ you,” he says, “because they were from decades ago. It had to have been your mother. I got him to talking about it one night when he was drunk, celebrating after a battle. I don’t know what your mom’s got to do with him, but he’s got some kind of grudge against her for some reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d come for you just to get to her.”

“My mother’s dead.” Serana, carefully, does not react to the lie.

Even so, Claude is not falling for it. “We both know that’s not true.” His eyes flit around the room. He steps, suddenly, to one side, blocking Eres from view with his body. When Serana looks over his shoulder, she sees a larger, stockier man dressed in clothes not too dissimilar from Claude’s, gazing searchingly around the room.

“Now tell me why you’re here,” he repeats firmly. “So I can get you _out of here_ before he notices you. I might be an asshole,” he admits, “but you know I’ve always been an asshole who cares.”

To Serana’s dismay, Eres’ anger actually seems to fade. But it is replaced with something akin to worry—she has not forgiven him, Serana thinks, but only turned her mind to other, more important matters for the time being. Eres has always been good at that.

“I need to get to Malborn.” Is all that Eres says to him. “Is Elenwen still scolding him?”

Claude looks over Eres’ head. “No,” he says. “She’s gone off to entertain the other guests. What’s this got to do with the bartender?”

“None of your business.” When Claude’s expression darkens, Eres says, “Trust me, Claude. The less you know, the better.”

“So you _are—_ here for a reason,” he says haltingly, as though he had caught himself from saying something more obvious, something that would have drawn suspicion.

“Obviously,” Eres says. “Do you think I would have dressed like this if I wasn’t?”

At that, Claude actually smirks, amusement plain in his eyes. “It _does_ take a lot to get you in a dress.” There is a beat, and Serana sees a wicked gleam sprout in his eyes, his lips stretching to curl into a smug smirk.

“Don’t even think about it.” Eres says it before Serana has the chance to. “I know what you’re thinking, you lech. Go away.”

“I have no idea what you mean.” Claude’s smirk only grows. The once-over he gives Eres is on the very borderline between appreciation and outright disrespect. “Go see your man. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Eres mutters darkly, but she moves to seek out Malborn all the same. Claude’s eyes follow her, trailing downward.

“Ogle someone else.” Serana orders him. Claude looks back at her, eyebrows raised. “Keep your eyes—and hands—off her, if you know what’s good for you.”

Claude eyes _her_ up and down, then, in a way that makes her skin crawl. He tucks a hand to his chin, considering her. “Didn’t take you for Eres’ type,” he muses, seemingly wholly unaffected by her threat. “She _has_ always liked them tall, though. Do you suppose she actually _likes_ feeling tiny?”

Serana, scowling, looks away from him. She wants to wring his neck. She also recognizes that’s not actually an appropriate reaction for a man who just looks at someone the wrong way. If he’d touched her again the way he had before, however, Serana might have lost the battle with her own restraint. “Just stay away from her.”

“I’ve known her a lot longer than you have.” Claude says lightly. He seems not at all bothered by her hostility. “If anyone has a claim on her, it’s—”

Serana’s hand _almost_ snaps out to clamp around his scrawny little throat. Almost. She stops herself in time to keep from causing a scene, but the look she gives him must have been murderous enough that he clamps his mouth shut immediately.

“Alright,” he says, throwing his hands up. “I get it. Not the joking sort.”

“I don’t _joke_ about owning women.” Serana snaps at him. “It’s a wonder Eres is even upset that you left. She _is_ better off without you.”

But Claude just shrugs, carelessly. “That’s what _I_ said,” he insists, his tone light. “Girl’s always had one hell of a temper though—and, speak of the devil and she shall appear.”

“Shut up,” Eres says, scowling at him. But then she says, “I need you to cause a scene.”

Claude, somehow, does not look at all surprised by the request. “Am I to shut up, or to cause a scene? Make up your mind, woman.”

“Don’t call me _woman_ ,” Eres says, at the exact same time that Serana says the same thing. “You can _shut up_ with your stupid comments, but I _do_ need you to cause a scene. It’s the one thing you’ve always been good at.”

“Ouch.” Claude clutches dramatically at his heart. Serana’s lip curls—just how old _is_ this guy? Fifteen? He certainly didn’t act as old as he looked. “That one hurt.”

“Just _do it_ , Claude.”

“Fine, fine,” he sighs. “You owe me. You—”

“Don’t _even_ think about it,” Eres repeats, even more harshly than before. “If you’re about to say something perverted—”

“I _wasn_ _’t!”_ Claude does actually look a bit wounded, then. “I’m not _that_ much of an asshole.”

“Weird,” Eres says flatly, “you seem like it.”

“I’m just going to have to remind you what a good guy I can be, then.” Claude’s smile is far too innocent to be genuine. By the grimace that passes over Eres’ face, she agrees with Serana’s assessment.

“Come on,” he says to Eres, and he extends a hand. “I’ll do it—for _you_ ,” he insists, “but you’ve got to let bygones be bygones. Forgive me,” he says. And then, to Serana’s shock, his voice softens, and he actually sounds genuine. “I _am_ sorry, Eres. I know—I _know_ how much I must have hurt you, back then. Disappearing the way I did. It wasn’t intentional, but that doesn’t make it better.”

For a long moment, Eres eyes him. Then, sighing, she reaches out and clasps Claude’s hand with her own. “Fine,” she says tersely. “But you still owe me an explanation.”

“Done.” Claude releases her hand, then straightens, and brushes invisible dirt from the front of his jacket. “Now,” he says, and he shoots even Serana a grin at this, “allow me to work my magic.”

Claude spins on his heel, then, walks to a man sitting upon a bench, and hauls him bodily off it. For a moment, Claude seems to only speak to him—about what, Serana could not have guessed. Then, in the next minute, the man grins suddenly, lifts both his hands, and _shoves_ Claude halfway across the room. And starts to swear up a bloody storm. At once, every guest in the room is looking at the two of them as a brawl seems imminent—between an Imperial soldier and, seemingly, a man drunk off his ass.

Eres, at Serana’s side, snorts.

“What did he say to him?” Serana wonders.

“Knowing him?” Eres shakes her head. “Probably, ‘ _you wanna start a fight?_ _’_ ” When Serana looks at her, baffled, Eres shrugs. “Men are stupid. They _like_ hurting each other. Now,” she says quickly, and rocks up on her toes to place a quick kiss at the corner of Serana’s jaw while no one’s looking. “I have to go.” She pushes the empty glass back into Serana’s hand. In a moment, all Serana sees is the back of her skirts as she disappears behind the bar with Malborn, and she is gone.

Serana sighs. A waitress halts suddenly near her, hesitating at the sight of the two men well on their way to brawling in the middle of a high-society soiree. This time, Serana takes _two_ flutes instead of one. She has the feeling she’s going to need them.

* * *

_“Hey.”_

_Eres turns to find Claude halfway through her open window. She scowls at him._ _“We have a door, you know.”_

 _Claude seems unaffected by her ire, as he always is._ _“I didn’t want to run into your dad,” he says. “Is he here?”_

_“No.” Eres’ father, thankfully, is out of town on some trip to Kvatch. The halls of her home, blessedly, are silent in his absence. “You really have to stop sneaking into my room at night. People are going to start rumors.”_

_“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Claude climbs the rest of the way in, straightens, and brushes the dirt from the chest of his loose-fitting shirt. As always, he has left the collar unsecured, revealing a portion of his chest in a manner she supposed he thought was attractive. She thinks it makes him look like a fool, but he’s never much listened to her advice. Or anyone’s, really. Claude does what he wants. “You’d think they’d learn.”_

_Eres doesn_ _’t bother to get out of bed. Partially because he’s not worth the trouble of getting up for, and she knows he’ll just jump onto her bed anyways. Partially because she’s in her nightclothes, and as much nonsense as he talks about her not being like a_ **_real_ ** _girl, she doesn_ _’t want him looking at her bare legs._

_“The only reason they don’t say anything anymore is because they know you never go back to the same girl twice.”_

_Claude, since he’d become a_ **_man_ ** _, as he said, has had a rotating door of girls he plays around with on nights such as these. Eres knows, because she is the only female friend he has, and he finds nothing strange at all about talking to her like she is one of his boys. As much as she is sick of hearing it._

 _“Exactly,” Claude says, and he grins roguishly at her. Eres eyes him, annoyed that she finds it attractive. If Claude’s looks had matched his personality, she wouldn’t be in this situation. And neither would he. It just so happened that he_ **_did_ ** _happen to have been blessed by Mara, with his boyish, sharp features and lean musculature. The problem with that, of course, is that Claude **knows** it. And he makes every effort to make sure that everyone else knows it, too. _ _“So there’s no problem.”_

_“There’s a problem if you’re caught in here with me.” Eres says, and glares at him when he hops onto her bed with his shoes on. He’s going to get dirt all over her blankets. Again. She’d had enough trouble explaining it the last time. When she was younger, they could get away with this kind of thing. Now that they’re older, it’s much harder for anyone to believe that Claude only comes to her room at night to talk, and nothing else._

_“This couldn’t wait till morning?”_

_Claude lays down next to her, on top of her blankets, and stares up at the ceiling. His expression sobers, his eyes going distant. When he looks like this, so serious, he looks older. More mature. Eres prefers him this way, prefers the way Claude is when they_ _’re alone and he has no one to perform for. Prefers the real Claude, the Claude she knows underneath it all._

_“No,” he says quietly, his voice hushed in the dark of her room. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”_

_Eres sits up on her elbows, looking down at him. She thinks, for a moment, that he_ _’s playing a prank on her. That he’s come all the way here in the middle of the night just to mess with her. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’s showed up in her room out of pure boredom. But when his eyes meet hers, and she sees so no hint of mirth in them, her heart sinks._

_“What do you mean, you won’t be here tomorrow?”_

_“I mean,” he says, “I’m leaving.”_

_She rolls over to face him, smacks his chest until he looks at her in the eyes._ _“Leaving_ where _, Claude?_ _”_

_“The Army,” he says plainly. She stares at him. He has to be joking. Him? In the army? How stupid did he think she was, thinking she might believe such a lie?_

_“You’re joking.”_

_“I’m not.” His voice is firm. His gaze does not waver. “I’m going to the Army tomorrow. They’re sending me to a fort up in Bruma for training. And then after that, I’ll be going to Skyrim.”_

_“What the hell is in Skyrim?”_

_“Snow.” Claude shoots her a grin when she smacks his arm. “A lot of snow,” he continues, “and I guess they’re having trouble with the locals ever since they banned Talos worship.” He shrugs as best he can while lying down. “I don’t know.”_

_“You’re joining the army and you don’t even know what for?”_

_“I’m joining the army for the money, Er.” He says, frowning at her. “Why else would I join up?”_

_“They’ll kick you out in a day. You don’t listen to anyone.”_

_“They won’t,” he says firmly. “I listen when it matters.” When she just stares dubiously back at him, he adds, his voice quiet, “I’m doing it for my parents. Ever since they had Celia, they’ve been struggling to get by. You know Dad’s never recovered from his injury last year.”_

_Eres remembers. That had been a hard time. Claude’s father had been caught in a mineshaft collapse. He’d been lucky to even get out alive, but he’d been bedridden for months after, and crippled ever since. The man could hardly walk without pain, let alone go back to working in the mines._

_“That old mine’s drying up now,” Claude continues, “and you know they don’t pay half as well as they should for how dangerous it is. I figure,” he shrugs, “if I’m gonna put my life on the line for coin, I might as well get_ good _coin out of it, you know? The army pays well, Er. Better than any other job I could get._ _”_

 _“Why does it have to be you?” Eres feels it now, the grief of losing him. He’s not even gone yet, and she can already feel it clawing open her chest, making her heart ache. What is she going to_ **_do_ ** _without him? He_ _’s the closest friend she’s ever had. He’s the_ **_only_ ** _real friend she_ _’s ever had. Everyone else—they were_ **_his_ ** _friends, not hers. They just let her tag along. How is she going to survive living in this house under her father’s thumb without Claude to keep her sane?_ _“You can’t leave, Claude.”_

_“I have to.” Claude sits up. He crosses his legs, turning to face her. For what it’s worth, he looks almost as sad as she feels - but he also looks just as determined. She knows she won’t be able to change his mind._

_“Who else is going to take care of my family? Mom can’t work. What would she do, prostitute herself on the streets? She’s got no education. None of us do. And Dad—” he shakes his head miserably. “Dad’s a step in the grave already. We had something in savings, for a while, but I followed mum last time she went up to the bank.” He looks down at his lap, running a hand through his mess of dark hair. “There’s nothin’ left, Er. We’re gonna lose the house.”_

_“Claude…” She wishes she could help him. She wishes beyond anything that she could find some money, somehow, save his family_ **_and_ ** _him. But her father hasn_ _’t got anything, either. He’s fired four servants in just the past year. Eres has had debt collectors at the door step twice last month. They’ve got nothing she can offer him. “I—”_

_“No, no,” he shakes his head. “I know you. You can’t help yourself. You always wanna help everybody.” He looks at her then, his expression stern. “You’re not helping me with this. You can’t. It’s my problem.”_

_“You’re my best friend.”_

_“I know,” he says. “And you’re mine. But I gotta do this for my family. And, you got your own problems to worry about with your dad, you know?” He shrugs. “You can’t help everybody.”_

_“I could come with you.” She offers it, even when she knows she can’t. If she even tried it, her father would haul her back by the hair. He knows too many people in the army._

_“You know you can’t.” Claude, though, smiles at her. Suddenly, it feels strangely like he’s comforting_ **_her_ ** _, instead of the other way around. Instead of the way it should be._ _“I’ll go, and I’m gonna work my way up until I’m an officer. And then maybe I can come back and get one of those real fancy jobs, you know, the ones in the senate building. Or maybe be a palace guard, after a few years. You never know.”_

 _Unlikely, she thinks, but doesn_ _’t say. “How long do you think that’ll take?”_

_“A few years, maybe.” He shrugs. “The recruiter said I could make officer in three if I work real hard. And I’m gonna work my ass off, believe me.” He tells her. Normally she would doubt that. Not this time. There’s nothing that Claude won’t do for his family. “Just wait for me,” he says. “I’ll be back before you know it.”_

_“You’d better write me.”_

_“Of course I will.”_

_It strikes her, in that moment, that the smile he gives her then may be the last one she sees from him for some time. It might just be the last time she ever sees him smile at all. He could get killed in Skyrim. He could get killed anywhere. She might never see him again. This could be the last time he ever lets himself into her room at night, the last late-night talk in her bed, the last time she ever speaks to him, ever sees him, ever knows him—something inside her chest **shatters** , and Eres feels the burn behind her eyes just moments before the tears fall. _

_“Aw, come on, Er,” Claude’s smile falls to the wayside. “Don’t cry on me, now. You’re gonna make me feel bad.”_

_Eres buries her face in her hands. She doesn_ _’t want him to see her like this. She doesn’t want him to see her being so—so weak. So much like the girls he used to make fun of for being so emotional. But she can’t help it. “You’re leaving me.” She manages, around a broken sob. “You’re leaving me just like everyone else—”_

 _Claude_ _’s arms come around her. He pulls her into his chest. “Shh,” he says to her, his voice soft in her ears. “I’m not like them,” he promises. “I swear to you that, Eres Svanhilde. I’m never gonna leave you forever. I’m never gonna forget about you, alright? Never. I’ll come back for you. I promise.” He holds her in his arms, and the last thing she hears before she cries herself to sleep is his solemn promise._

_“I promise, Eres.” He says. “You know I never break a promise.”_

_By the time she wakes in the morning, he is gone. He leaves her nothing but a small, velvet pouch. Inside it, there is a single, silver earring, and a handwritten note on a scrap of parchment._ _‘I have the other one,’ it says. ‘Wear this, and I’ll always be with you. - Claude.’_

* * *

Eres tugs on the silver ring on her right ear. _“Liar,”_ she mutters.

Malborn looks at her. “What was that?”

Eres shakes her head, pushing thoughts of Claude out of her mind. “Nothing. Where’s my things?”

“This way,” he says, voice hushed. He leads her out of the small room adjacent to the bar, into the kitchen. A single Khajiit female stands at a cookpot, aimlessly stirring whatever is inside it.

The Khajiit woman sniffs at the air, but does not turn. “Who comes, Malborn?” She grumbles. “You know I don’t like strange smells in my kitchen.”

“A guest,” Malborn says easily. “Feeling ill. Leave the poor wretch be.”

“A guest? In the kitchens? You know this is against the rules…”

“Rules, is it, Tsavani?” Malborn retorts smartly, “I didn’t realize that eating Moon Sugar was permitted. Perhaps I should ask the Ambassador…”

Tsavani hisses at him, clicking her tongue. “Get out of here! I saw _nothing_.”

Eres does not say a word. She allows Malborn to lead her through the kitchen and to a small, adjacent room that could only have been the servant’s hall he had spoken of back in the Winking Skeever, where servants could safely travel between rooms within the complex without being seen.

“In here.” Malborn draws her to a corner of the room, pulling a small trunk out from under a shelf. He opens it, and hands her both her leather strapping and the single dagger she had asked him to hide for her. Without wasting time, Eres undoes the fastens on the outer layer of her skirt and drops it to the ground, right in front of him. He gapes at her. “Um,” he says.

She steps out of it, picks it up, and rolls it into a bundle of cloth. “Here,” she shoves it into his chest. “Put that somewhere. I don’t care where.” She kind of does. She’d like to sell it, maybe. She’d spent enough money on it. But right now she has other things to worry about. She straightens the neutral grey skirt that had beneath it. “Do I look like a servant, now?”

“Well, almost.” Malborn steps to her, and with a muttered apology, he pulls the lacing at the front of her bodice apart just a bit, loosening it at her bust until her blouse parts at the collar, until just the hint of cleavage shows. He steps back, looking uncomfortable. “The girls are a bit… forward, here,” he says haltingly. “Now you look like one of them.”

That had felt— _very_ uncomfortable. Eres turns away from him to lift up the hem of her skirt and straps the the dagger high on her thigh until she can reach its hilt through the slit in the pocket. Only once she is done does she turn to him. “Alright,” she says. “I’m ready. Where do I go?”

“Through here.” Malborn gestures to a door at the back of the room. He keeps his voice low as he speaks, half crouching as though he expects to be heard or seen through the door itself. “Be careful. I’ll lock the door behind you. You have to find another way out.”

Eres swears under her breath. Just when she’d thought it couldn’t get more complicated. She takes a short moment to open the map Inigo had pilfered for her, just to make an attempt at memorizing where she ought to go. When she is satisfied, and tired of Malborn’s impatient stare, she tucks it back into the top of her blouse, and pulls the door open.

 _“Be careful,”_ Malborn hisses, and slowly, he closes the door shut behind her.

Eres, standing in the hall in his wake, wonders, yet again, how she had gotten herself into this mess. She has done a lot of stupid things in her life. This might just take the cake. With a deep breath, Eres steels herself, and shuffles forward down the long hall to begin her search.

It is not long before she hears a pair of voices, in the room just beyond her. In the room she is certain she needs to go through to get to the basement. _Damn it,_ she thinks, peering quickly around the door. There are two Thalmor guards in the room, talking with one another. They’re in just the right position that she wouldn’t be able to sneak behind one of them without alerting the other. How the hell is she going to manage this one?

“Did you see those robes march in this morning? Who are they with? More of the Emissary’s treaty enforcers?” Treaty enforcers… Eres’ brow pinches together. Those must be the Thalmor patrols, rumored to go around ousting Talos worshippers.

“No. They’re high mages, just in from Alinor. I guess Herself is finally getting worried about all the dragon attacks.”

Eres holds herself very still, hardly daring herself to even so much as breathe. “Ah, good,” says the first guard. “I’ve been wondering how we were supposed to defend this place from a dragon.”

“If a dragon does show up, maybe we’ll get lucky and it will eat the mages first. Might give us enough time to kill it.”

The other guard laughs. “Ha. I’d like to see those arrogant bastards taken down a notch. Always looking down their noses at us lowly footsloggers.” The two prattle on, going back and forth about how much they hate the mages and their superiority complexes, going on so long that Eres wonders if she will just have to go in there and try to kill them both before they can raise the alarm, when finally, one sighs out.

“Well,” he says, “We’d better get back to our rounds.”

At long last, the two turn away from each other, wandering away. Eres presses herself against the wall as one comes to the door, and thanks her lucky stars when he turns in the opposite direction down the hall she is in. With a quick glance to be sure, Eres ducks behind him into the room he had vacated—and slowly, carefully, she makes her way past the second guard. With his back turned to her, and his helmet blocking his peripheral vision, she is able to duck past him, as well, and into the next room. She sees a couple of doors, leading to what she must imagine is the courtyard—which would be the second wide-open area on Inigo’s map, and the area she must get through in order to find where the basement would be. She also spots a set of stairs leading upward, and feels an inexplicable draw in that direction.

Going up the stairs is the exact opposite of what she needs to do. But, perhaps up on the second floor, there will be a window overlooking the courtyard that she could use to scope out whatever patrols are up there. It would make planning her trip through the courtyard much easier. The problem would be coming back down the stairs, with no knowledge of who might be waiting below.

Eres hesitates, a second too long. On a whim, she moves to the stairs. She _needs_ eyes on that courtyard. Inigo’s map had not included guard patrols, and she needs to know what she’s in for if things go sideways.

She makes it up the stairs and nearly to a window before she hears a voice.

“You, girl!” Calls a man’s voice, and Eres hears the creaking of a chair as a man stands from it. When she turns, there is a Thalmor wizard just behind her, his eyes hard. “What are you doing up here? This floor is off-lim—”

Eres does not give herself a chance to second guess it. She draws her dagger, lunges for him, and buries it to the hilt in his neck before he can speak another word. He gurgles around it, his blood spilling hotly over her fingers. She lowers him slowly to the ground, then drags him further into the room and closes the door behind her, locking it tight. She has little time, but while she’s here—Eres does a quick search of the room. She rifles through the sheafs of parchment on his desk, through his wardrobe, through a storage chest in one corner, through the dressers. She finds little of note beyond customary reports, but—she does find a fresh pair of Thalmor robes, and a hood she could use to cover her face.

This is her best bet, and she knows it.

Eres pulls the robes over her dress, glad for once that her petite stature means that almost anything an Altmer could wear would fit her. Then she pulls the hood low over her head, and, palming her dagger in her right hand, Eres opens the door and makes her way back down the stairs at an almost leisurely walk.

She just has to look like she belongs. That’s all. If she draws attention to herself, they will know. She just needs them to believe it long enough to get through the courtyard, and she will be home free. Practically.

Eres opens the door. She steps into the chill of the air. A patrolling guard glances at her. There is the ghost of what appears to be a sneer on his face, but he says nothing as she approaches him. He doesn’t so much as blink as she passes him. One down, she tells herself, and she forces her expression to appear almost haughty, in that arrogant, disaffected way that Thalmor often look when they’re going about their business. The second guard passes the same as the first. By the third, Eres has almost relaxed, save for the racing of her heart in her chest.

She should have known it wouldn’t be so easy.

The moment she reaches the Thalmor wizard at the other end of the courtyard, guarding the door to the building she _needs_ to be in, she knows she’s been made.

“Wait,” the wizard says, his brows pulling together. “What are you doing out here? I don’t recognize you.” She closes in on him as she hears the shifting of the guards behind her, as she feels eyes upon her back. Just a few steps closer. If she can kill him and get through the door before he raises the alarm, she should be able to blockade it. Then, when she is still a few steps away, his eyes widen. “You’re not— _gu—!_ _”_

She closes the last of the few feet between them in a mere instant, shoving her dagger deep into his chest. She hears the shouts of alarm behind her as she throws the door open, tossing his body behind her, darting through it. She hears the thuds of arrows hit the back of the door as she slams it closed behind her, cries of alarm, shouting, and what sounds like a warhorn just outside. She’s well and truly _fucked_ , now.

Without wasting any more time, Eres pushes a table in front of the door, jamming it just beneath the handle. It won’t stop them for long, but it might buy her just enough time that she can get what she needs to and get _out_.

“Serana, if you can hear me,” she mutters under her breath, not quite certain just how sensitive Serana’s hearing truly is, but not trusting herself to shout. “I could really use your help right about now.”

\----

Serana does not hear Eres, but she does notice a sudden tension rising in the room around her. Serana’s eyes narrow as a guard enters the room, marches briskly towards Elenwen, and leans in to mutter under his breath into her waiting ear.

“Damn it,” Serana mutters.

Claude, next to her, frowns. “What is it?”

Serana rises to her feet. Almost casually, she walks behind the bar. She hasn’t seen Malborn since he’d taken Eres behind it. She had wondered what had happened to him. How far had they even managed to get before they’d been caught? Had they been caught immediately, and the guard were only just now reporting it? How much time did she have left to find Eres in this mess?

She wraps her hand around the locked door to the kitchen, and, glancing over her shoulder, gives it a quick, hard jerk. The lock snaps, the door yawning open, and she manages only a single step inside before Claude has materialized at her shoulder.

“What the hell are you doing?” He hisses at her, even as he follows her inside.

“Making myself useful,” Serana mutters. “You should try it sometime.” She spots a Khajiit, turned to face them, mouth agape. The woman gets halfway to taking a breath before Serana raises her hand and forms a very long, very sharp spike of ice. “Don’t.” She warns her, voice as cold as the magic in her hands. “Say a word and I’ll kill you.”

“Whoa,” Claude mutters at her back. “A bit much, isn’t it?”

The Khajiit woman, however, raises her hands defensively. With one hand, she points stiffly to her left. “They went that way!” She exclaims, voice shaking with fright. “Tsavani has no part in this! Tsavani has nothing to do with it!”

“Be _quiet_ ,” Serana hisses, and the woman’s mouth snaps shut. “Thank you.” She closes her hand, and the magic dissipates in an instant. “You,” she turns to Claude. “ _Go back to the party._ _”_

 _“Hell I will_ ,” Claude mutters. “If Eres is in trouble, I’m coming.”

“Can you _really_ afford to be here right now? You’re _one of them._ ”

“I’m a soldier, not a Thalmor.” Claude grabs a long, mean-looking chef’s knife from off a chopping block, tests its weight. “I’m coming. Besides,” he says, shrugging. “Eres will tell you. I’ve never been very good at listening.”

“As if I need _her_ to tell me that,” Serana mutters. Maybe she’ll get lucky and he’ll get killed by one of the Thalmor. Except then Eres would probably be upset with her for _letting_ him die. Serana sighs. “Just shut up and try not to get killed.”

Serana breaks the lock of the kitchen door, takes two steps into the next hall, and immediately impales a guard who freezes upon seeing her with a lance of ice almost as long as her arm.

“Damn mages,” Claude mutters. A guard, hearing the commotion, runs out into the hallway. This one, Claude leaps for, burying the knife into the man’s chest. He wrenches it out just as quickly, letting the poor guard drop bonelessly to the floor. Then, he bends to steal the man’s sword. “He’s not using it,” he says with a shrug, when Serana stares at him.

 _Well, at least he_ _’s not useless_ , she thinks, and turns away. She just has to find Eres. That’s all. She closes her eyes a moment, listening.

“What are you—”

Serana claps her hand over his mouth. He quiets, _thank the Divines_. In the silence, Serana listens. She tunes out the sounds of the party just beyond, a couple of rooms over. She tunes out the rustle of leaves and wind just outside. She tunes out everything except for what she needs to hear:

A heartbeat. One she knows all too well. She hears it, somewhere in the distance, somewhere just north of them—so muffled and faint that she very nearly mistakes it for something else. Had it not been racing as it was, she may have. But she has heard Eres’ heart race like that all too often. Only, now it did not race because of Serana—it raced because Eres is in _danger_.

“This way.” Serana, reluctantly, leads Claude through the complex, following the sound of that heartbeat in her ears, all too loud now that she’s focused in on it. _I_ _’m coming_ , she thinks. By all the Divines, don’t let that heartbeat _stop_. It means she’s still alive, wherever she is. All she has to do is find her.

In the courtyard, Serana loses track of how many she kills. Eres is beyond it. That is all she cares about. She barrels through that door, then, Claude at her heels—and then Claude is racing past her, sword drawn, and he runs through the guard holding Malborn hostage without warning.

Malborn yelps as the sound of the man’s dying gurgle sounds in his ears, trembling from head to toe even as the guard drops lifelessly to the ground. Claude stands over him, blood-soaked sword in one hand, his noble finery stained with even more of it.

“What—who—you—”

“Get yourself together, man,” Claude says to him. He reaches down, pulls the sword from the guard’s vice-like deathgrip, and shoves it into Malborn’s hands. “We have to get out of here. Where’s Eres?”

“I—”

“Claude?” comes a voice, from down the stairs. Then, a beat later, with considerably more relief, “ _Serana?_ _”_

“I’m here,” Serana calls down to her. She takes the stairs two at a time. “Where are you?”

“In here.” Serana turns—down a long hall of dungeon cells. And finds Eres in one of them. For a moment, it feels like something in Serana’s chest _seizes_ , because there is blood _everywhere_ , and Eres is in a cell, and her heart is still racing and—

Eres must see the look on her face, for her eyes drop to her hands, then she shakes her head, looking back up at her. “It’s not mine,” she says quickly. “I’m fine. I just thought—” Her eyes flit to somewhere just over Serana’s shoulder. Her eyes look conflicted, pained. “I thought I couldn’t save him,” she manages, voice quiet. “Is he—”

“He’s fine,” Serana assures her. She steps into the cell, eying the man hanging from the irons in the walls. “Just bitching.” The comment, at least, makes Eres shoot her a fleeting smile. It is better than nothing. “Who’s this?”

Eres shrugs. “I don’t know. I was trying to unlock his shackles when I heard them coming down…” When Serana sends her a questioning look, Eres has the grace to at least look a little sheepish. “I couldn’t just _leave_ him here.”

At that, Serana lets out a long, tired sigh. That damned heart of hers. Eres _always_ puts others before herself. One of these days, it’s going to get her killed. ‘One of these days’ could have been _today._ Serana, despite herself, draws Eres into a quick, tight hug, uncaring of the blood upon Eres’ hands. “I thought they’d found you.”

“Well, they did,” Eres shrugs in her arms, then pulls away. “I just blocked the door. It took them a while to get in. I found a few things,” she says quickly, “but then I found him, and well…”

“I told her… to leave without me,” the man rasps, coughing. “I’m not—worth dying over…”

“And I said _no_ ,” Eres says, pointedly. She looks to Serana, eyes pleading. “Help me get him out. Freeze these shackles off or something. Can you make them brittle?”

“I can try,” Serana says, because how could she do otherwise when Eres is looking at her like that? She has no idea if it will work, but she will damn well _try_ for her. Even if she thinks it’s stupid. Even if she thinks they’re wasting precious time.

“Guys,” Claude hurries to them, his voice urgent, eyes frantic. “We _really_ need to get out of here before Elenwen gets down here. Like, _now_.”

“Hopefully _before_ we die!” Malborn insists, at his side. He is still shaking, but now he looks more infuriated than scared.

“Go ahead without us!” Eres hisses at them. “There’s a trap door over there. Here.” She tosses a key at Claude, who catches it smoothly in one hand. “Just wait for us outside.”

“Eres, I’m not leaving you here—”

“You’ve done it once already, what’s once more?” Claude just stares at her. “ _Go_ , Claude. I have Serana.”

Serana hates that she feels smug about that. It feels petty. It feels beneath her. And yet—she has to keep herself from smirking at him.

 _She has **me**_ , the petty, childish part of her thinks. _She doesn_ _’t need you._

Serana hears him curse under his breath, and then the hurried footsteps of he and Malborn retreating towards the trap door. She turns back to Eres, and the poor man shackled to the wall, and calls ice to both of her hands. “You couldn’t just leave well enough alone, could you?” She can’t really call herself upset. This is why she loves her. _This_ is why there is part of her that’s always felt like she doesn’t deserve her. Eres is just too _good_.

Beside her, Eres shrugs helplessly. The shackles crack, emitting a high-pitched whine as they chill to sub-zero temperature, as the metal weakens, and with a sharp tug on the man’s arm, one of the shackles shatters into pieces. Serana moves to do the same to the other, hearing the sound of guards approaching, footsteps upon snowy ground just outside in the courtyard. “We have to hurry.” The man sags when he’s released, hardly strong enough to stand.

Eres takes one of his arms and throws it over her shoulder. “Get that trap door open.”

Serana shakes her head mutely. Idiot. She grabs him from her, hoisting him onto her shoulder in one swift move. “ _You_ get the door open,” she orders. “I’ve got him.” How far the mighty fall - here she is, Daughter of Coldharbour, one of the most powerful vampires in Skyrim, perhaps all of Tamriel - and she is reduced to carrying a half-broken man on her back because the love of her life wants to save him.

When two of them drop into the landing beneath the trap door, Claude is waiting for them.

“What took you so long?!”

“We had to get him out.” Eres pushes him ahead of them both, already taking off at a run. “Just _go_. Where’s Malborn?”

“He ran off ahead on his own.”

They do not speak again for some time, crashing through the snowy hills, into the forest where they might disrupt the line of sight of any who come after them. Serana can hear them in the distance, orders shouted over the biting wind, can see the torchlights flickering between the trunks of the trees in the darkness. They have been running for what feels like ages by the time Serana sees the silhouette of Solitude rising up into the sky above them—still yet hours away by foot. They had run _north_ instead of east from the Embassy.

The man on her shoulder wriggles. “Let me—down—” she releases him at once, and he crumples to the snow below.

“ _Serana_ ,” Eres scolds her.

“He asked,” Serana shrugs.

“I can make it… on my own,” the man says, climbing slowly to his feet. “There’s a… camp nearby, I—” he swallows, looking at Eres, his face mottled with bruises and cuts from the torture he had endured under the Thalmor. “I won’t forget this,” he promises. “You have my thanks.”

Eres nods at him, watches him hobble off, a conflicted look in her eyes. “He won’t make it far on his own if they catch up with him.”

“That’s not our problem anymore.” When Eres’ face twists, Serana sighs. “You saved him, Eres. It’s on him now. He’s a lot better off now than he was before.”

Eres sighs. “Claude?”

“Here,” he whispers. His tall form appears from around a nearby tree, his clothes near pitch-black in the dark of night.

“What are you going to do?” Eres asks him. She pauses, her head turning, listening. The guards chasing them, as far as Serana can tell, are still picking their way through the brush, moving slowly to follow their tracks through the snow. They’re still just far enough away that they’re safe - for the moment. But not for long. “If you come with us—”

Claude shakes his head. “I’ll be hunted down as a deserter then, too,” he says, speaking nothing of the Thalmor, who would hunt him regardless. “Hit me,” he says, and Serana blinks.

“What?” Eres stares at him.

“ _Hit me_ ,” he repeats. “Knock me out. Make it look like I chased you and you kicked my ass. Make it _good_ ,” he says, stepping closer. “You know I can take it.” When Eres does not immediately move to do that, Claude looks at Serana, instead. “Come on,” he says hurriedly. “I _know_ you want to hit me. You’d probably kill me yourself if it wasn’t for Eres.”

Well, he’s right about that one. Serana looks at Eres.

“Well, _I_ _’m_ not going to hit him,” Eres huffs. “Just don’t kill him. And no maiming,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.

“Yes, dear,” Serana drawls. Then, her lips curl into a slow, satisfied smile as she turns to Claude. Maybe the night had been mostly terrible. But this - _this_ would be a highlight. She’s going to remember this fondly. “This is _definitely_ going to hurt.”

Claude nods several times in quick succession, bracing himself. He glances at Eres, opens his mouth to speak, and Serana decks him.

“ _Serana,_ ” Eres scolds her, _again_ , as Claude drops like a stone. “You could’ve waited.”

Serana shrugs. “You told me to hit him.” It’s not _her_ fault he’d chosen to speak at that moment. How could she be blamed? “Let’s _go_ ,” she grabs Eres’ hand, tugging her alongside her. “Before they catch up with us.”

“I’m going to hate myself for this,” Eres mutters behind her. Serana looks at her, frowning.

“Pick me up and run.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my beta absolutely hates claude just from his general concept. she hasn't even read this chapter yet and she still hates him. wild. i mean, valid. but still.
> 
> to be 100% clear, he is not competition. you could read eres' previously mentioned childhood crush on him as comphet, if you want. she didn't actually like him so much as she felt like she was supposed to. he was, however, eres' closest friend, and eres does care deeply about those she lets close to her. just wanted to be clear that there's nothing romantic about those feelings.


	7. Low Tide

In the end, it is Rorikstead they retreat to, and Riverwood after that. Serana does not ask if Eres wants to stop by Fellburg on the way, and Eres does not request it. Serana knows, without needing to ask, that Eres is avoiding it. Avoiding what had once been her safe haven, her home - a place that had offered her comfort in a world that had so little of it to spare.

But Serana wonders whether Eres is avoiding Fellburg, or the people within it. She does not ask that, either, and Eres does not tell.

The first thing Eres does when they reach Riverwood is demand a bath. Despite how much more quickly they had been able to reach Riverwood, travelling at Serana’s speed rather than Eres’, it had still taken them the better part of two days to make the journey.

It might have taken less time, had Serana not needed to stop to hunt not once, but _twice_ in as many days. She tells herself it is only because she had been forced to sustain such a speed for so long. She tells herself there is no deeper meaning, that there is nothing she should concern herself over. That does not stop the thoughts from turning over in the back of her mind.

How could her thirst be getting _stronger_ over time? It was common knowledge that a vampire gained more control as they grew older _because_ their thirst was not as prevalent. Over time, a vampire would learn to make better use of each feeding. Experience is what allows a vampire to learn restraint, to learn _endurance_.

It was so well known, in fact, that one could reasonably trust the length of time a vampire could go without a feeding to determine the age of one, give or take a few centuries. Comfortably, that was - many vampires could easily starve themselves, if they wished to, of course.

Serana had, once, when she had been much too young a fledgling to do so. But to go without comfortably, to be sated - Serana, at her age, should have been able to last several days without feeding if she did not use too much magic, if she did not wear herself down. Longer still if she spent that time leisurely. She had fed not long before Winterhold. She had spent her time there doing—essentially, nothing at all. Reading. Lying in bed with Eres.

She had even sort-of slept, though in the way that only vampires did, where it was not so much sleeping as simply allowing one’s consciousness to fade into the background. All things considered, her last feeding should have lasted her _longer_ than usual.

And yet, here she is. They had made it just past Dragon Bridge before her thirst had become uncomfortable; a burning in her throat, an awareness of Eres’ pulse that should not have been there. A temptation.

Serana had discounted it, gone to hunt, convinced herself that the stress of running from the _Thalmor_ had just affected her, somehow. As if she has not run from worse. As she has not _fought_ worse, seen worse, and been unaffected. The next day, she had blamed Mirabelle.

It was _Mirabelle_ _’s_ fault that Serana had become too conscious of Eres— _Mirabelle_ was at fault for making Serana’s baser instincts see Eres as an option, where Serana herself had once long ago discounted that. It was Mirabelle’s fault that now, Serana finds herself tempted, too aware of Eres’ proximity, too aware of the bounding pulse at her neck, too aware of the powerful blood coursing through her veins. If Mirabelle had just left well enough alone, Serana would not be thinking about it _now_ , and she would be fine. Everything would be fine.

But everything is _not_ fine, and Serana wonders if it ever will be again. Will she have to train herself to ignore the call of Eres’ blood, once more? Or would she find herself increasingly unable to be near her without the need to hunt soon after? And how could she explain such a thing to _Eres_ , who has more than once made perfectly clear that she would allow it? Serana doesn’t know if she would be able to refuse, if Eres were to offer it while she is already sorely tempted. And to do such a thing when Eres knows so little about what lies beneath the surface of it…

She cannot afford to leave Eres’ side, now, with the possibility that the Thalmor have now gained knowledge of her and want her for their own. But Serana knows there is only one person who might have the answers to the questions ravaging her mind—her mother. Back in Fellburg. The one place Eres seems all too determined to avoid for the time being.

Serana hears a patter of footsteps at the stairs, and sees Delphine straighten.

“About time,” Delphine grouses.

Eres, reaching the bottom of the stairs, ignores her. Serana looks at her, strangely a bit saddened to see her out of the noble finery once more. This was _her_ Eres, yes—the one she has known since the beginning, who didn’t care for finery and dressed for practicality. But, it had been nice to see Eres embrace it, for a time.

Now, she is back in her simple robes and leather armor once more. Serana finds her gaze drawn to the still-damp ends of Eres’ dark hair across her shoulders, and there is an urge in her to pull her closer, to run her fingers through it, to breathe in the fresh-clean scent of her, stronger when her skin is still moist from bathing.

But Eres looks at her oddly as she approaches, tilting her head. “Are you feeling alright?” She asks, and Serana blinks.

“Yes,” she says, and she means it. For the most part. She is alright, mostly. Just distracted. Distracted by things that should not even matter, by the tiniest of details which no one else would notice or care for - like the fact that Eres’ eyelashes are still wet, or that her hair is such that it will take hours to dry completely, that hours from now Serana will hold her in her arms and find moisture in her hair even still, just at the nape of her neck where her hair is too thick for the sun and air to dry it. Or, the way the hot bath always makes Eres’ blood rise to the surface, and makes her that much more distracting until it fades.

“Serana.”

Serana tears her eyes away from her. It is probably safer not to look. “I’m fine.”

But out of the corner of her eyes, she can see Eres’ brow furrow. There is a question on Eres’ lips, she knows it, even without looking at her—but whatever it is, Eres decides not to ask just then. Instead, she turns away, turns her attention to Delphine instead. Serana glances at her, and knows that she will likely hear it later, when they are alone. Eres is not likely to have forgotten her strange behavior as of late. But how can she _explain it_?

“What did you find in the Embassy?” Delphine asks. As always, she is right to the point. She hadn’t even wanted to allow Eres time for the bath when they’d arrived - it had taken a fair amount of convincing to even allow them that.

“Nothing.” Eres says, and Serana’s gaze snaps to her, stunned. On the way here, they’d had little time to discuss the actual infiltration, being so concerned with making it out of the Thalmor’s realm of influence. Serana hadn’t even thought to ask.

Delphine stares at her, hard. “What do you mean, _nothing_?”

“I found _something_ ,” Eres tells her, and she hands Delphine a small, leatherbound journal. “But it has nothing to do with the dragons’ return. The Thalmor don’t know any more about that than we do.”

“That’s impossible.” Delphine shakes her head, but she still reaches for the journal all the same. “There’s no one else who could—”

“No one else _mortal_ , maybe,” Eres says. “But I get the feeling this is something beyond that. The only thing in there of any note is something about a guy named Esbern.”

Delphine, already skimming through it, pauses, freezing in mid-motion. “Esbern?”

Eres shrugs. “There’s a dossier on him. You, as well, actually. But nothing else. I’ve read it, but…” She shakes her head. “I don’t understand half the things it’s referring to. Something about a temple and the Blades.” Her brow furrows, then, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Didn’t you say _you_ were a Blade, once? You never told me what that was all about.”

“The Blades…” Delphine sighs, closing her eyes. She closes the journal, too, and sits heavily in a chair she had dragged near to the war table as though she is too exhausted to stand, suddenly. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you, Dragonborn,” Delphine says slowly. “And that is a failure on my part. I should have been upfront with you from the start—”

“Yes,” Serana cuts in, eyes narrowing, “you should have been.”

Delphine glances at her, but does not seem cowed by her in the slightest. Rather, she seems tired.

“Is this why the Thalmor were after you?” Eres asks. Serana watches her as she shifts on her feet, from one side to the other, rolling one ankle and then the next. It is not anxiety she sees there, in Eres, but tiredness. The journey had not been easy on either of them. Eres has not slept since that first night in Solitude at the Winking Skeever. It is as though Eres moves merely to keep herself awake, shifting and fidgeting every few moments. “Are you going to actually tell me what’s really going on here, now?”

“Yes,” Delphine says. She eyes Eres a moment, and, apparently also seeing what Serana sees, says, “Sit down. This will take a while.”

“I’d rather stand.” When Delphine frowns, Eres shakes her head. “If I sit down, I’ll fall asleep. Just start talking.” A beat, then, “And where is Inigo?”

“We had the feeling that things wouldn’t go smoothly at the Embassy, with Elenwen in attendance. I told him to lay low until it blew over. I imagine he’s gone somewhere safe?” Delphine shrugs. “Not sure where.”

“Fellburg,” Eres says, nodding. It is the most likely place Inigo may have gone to. “That’s good, then.”

“He’s not as silly as he makes himself out to be,” Delphine says, slow and careful. “You have a loyal friend in him.”

Eres blinks, looking surprised by that. “I know,” she says, giving Delphine an odd look.

“It’s good,” Delphine says. “That you command such loyalty from your followers. You’ll need it.”

“They’re _friends_ ,” Eres argues. “Not followers.”

Serana finds herself shrugging. She’s not sure she wouldn’t call them followers, in a way. Eres is the one who leads—the people around her fall in step behind her. If that is not the definition of a follower, Serana doesn’t know what it is. There is something about Eres that inspires that kind of loyalty, she will admit. It had been the reason she had sought Eres out after escaping from the castle, rather than trying to fight against her father’s prophecy on her own. Perhaps she had made a bit of a gamble, there, but it had paid off. In spades.

“As for the Blades,” Delphine continues, “The Blades have always guarded and guided the Dragonborn throughout the ages. But without a Dragonborn—we had forgotten. Now that you are here, our purpose is clear. I _thought_ I was all that was left of them.”

“You _thought_?” Eres quotes. 

“The Thalmor,” Delphine’s expression sours, “have been hunting down every Blade they can find for the past thirty years. And thanks to that damnable Concordat, they can do whatever they want in the Empire with total impunity.”

Eres shakes her head. “That never seemed like much of a treaty, to me.”

Serana looks between them, lost—there are still so many things about the Empire that she just doesn’t know. “What’s this Concordat?”

“The White-Gold Concordat.” Delphine says, and looks at her measuringly. “It was only thirty years ago, and yet already people are forgetting—”

“Serana was locked in a tomb for millennia,” Eres explains shortly. “She doesn’t know the Empire’s history.”

At that, Delphine blinks. “Do I want to know why?”

Serana shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, now.” Because it didn’t. They’d handled it. The reason she’d been locked away in the first place is now nothing but a thing of the past. There’s no need to get into it. “There was a reason, but it’s not important now.”

“It happened before I was born,” Eres tells her. “There was a war between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion. The story goes that the Dominion sent an ambassador with a cart full of severed heads and demanded the Emperor’s surrender. With several conditions attached.”

“The disbandment of the Blades being one of them,” Delphine adds. “As well as outlawing Talos worship.”

“The Emperor rejected it, and they went to war. It only ended when the Dominion and Empire signed the White-Gold Concordat.” Eres’ expression shifts into something like disgust, suddenly. “It wasn’t a popular decision even in the Empire. There’s a pretty strong belief that we might have been able to win it decisively if the Emperor had kept fighting—but that’s another story entirely.” She sighs, then, the expression melting away to something almost like despair. “I had to write _so_ many essays about that damned war.”

At that, Serana finds herself smirking. Somehow, the image of Eres being a little scholar when she was younger is a hard one to reconcile with the image of her now.

“Regardless—the treaty was signed, and the Thalmor hunted us down. I believed I was the only one left.” Delphine frowns. “But it seems Esbern is alive, too.”

“So you know him.”

“A fellow Blade? Of course I knew him. But if they’re looking for him now, that means he’s in danger. If they’re trying to find out what’s going on with the dragons, it makes sense that they would try tracking him down.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Serana asks. “If he’s such an expert.”

“Simple,” Delphine shrugs. “I thought he was dead. But this is good news for us, Dragonborn. Esbern was one of the Blades’ archivists, back before the Great War. There’s no one alive who knows more about dragonlore than he does. He was obsessed with it, really. Nobody paid him much attention back then. Guess he wasn’t as crazy as we all thought.”

Eres nods. “Alright, then how do we find him? Do you think their lead might be right? The dossier said they thought he might be hiding out in Riften.”

“Riften, eh? Probably down in the Ratway then. It’s where I would go, were I him.”

At the mention of the Ratway, Serana sees Eres let out a long suffering sigh. “Familiar with this Ratway, are you?”

“Remember when I said I was really tired of sewers, a long time ago?” Eres reminds her, hands on her hips. “ _That_ _’s_ the sewer I’d been in. With _him_.”

Serana’s amusement fades. Altano. It seemed like he infected everything he touched. Just how many places had he dragged Eres along to when he was manipulating her? If that man hadn’t already been dead she’d have killed him herself. And then maybe she’d have raised him just so she could kill him a second time. The bastard.

“With who?”

Eres’ expression shutters. “No one.” When Delphine frowns, she shakes her head. “An old—well. Someone I knew, once. It doesn’t matter now. He’s dead.”

“Were you the one that killed him?”

“No.” Eres says flatly. “A Daedra did.”

Delphine squints at her, looking as though she expects to find a sign that Eres is lying to her. “If you say so,” Delphine says, after a pregnant pause. “You should get to Riften and talk to a man called Brynjolf. He’s well-connected.”

“I know who he is.” Eres says. “Haven’t met him, but I know where to find him.”

“Good, then,” Delphine nods. “Ask around the Ragged Flagon, in the Ratway. It’ll at least be a good starting point to find Esbern. And take some gold with you - they might need a little bit of persuasion to help you out.”

“Any particular reason you’re not coming with us?” Serana asks. She’s not particularly upset about that, mind you - the less time she has to spend with Delphine the better - but she is curious, nonetheless.

“Someone needs to keep an eye out topside,” Delphine says simply. “There’s no one who hears more rumors than an innkeeper. I can keep an ear out to make sure of just what the Thalmor’s up to. We know they’re looking for Esbern - what we _don_ _’t_ know, is if they’re looking for _you_ , specifically. I imagine you killed everyone who saw you, but—”

“Well,” Serana’s mouth twists. “We killed every _Thalmor_ , maybe. There were a couple others who saw me that I didn’t kill. The cook, for one.”

Eres nods her confirmation. “Fairly certain she saw me, too. Malborn had one over on her, but—”

“If they think to torture her, she won’t last long,” Delphine says grimly. “Eventually, your descriptions will be made widely known amongst the Thalmor. Which is all the more reason for me to remain here and keep a look out for you. For the time being, it’s probably best for you to avoid known Empire strongholds. The neutral places like Rorikstead or Whiterun might be alright, but I would avoid Solitude for the time being. Falkreath, too, is known to bend over for anyone with enough coin.”

“Least surprising thing I’ve heard all day,” Eres drawls. “Anything else?”

“Yes, actually. Esbern isn’t likely to trust you easily, if you do find him. If you think _I_ _’m_ paranoid—” she scoffs, shaking her head. “Just ask him where he was on the 30th of Frostfall. He’ll know what it means. You should get there as soon as possible—”

“Absolutely not.” Serana vetoes _that_ idea immediately. “Eres hasn’t slept in two days. And _I_ _’m_ exhausted from running all this way. We’re easily a day ahead of the Thalmor, if not more. We stay the night.” When Delphine’s expression twists with obvious disagreement, Serana repeats herself: “We’re _staying_. We can leave tomorrow.”

And then she drags Eres off, back up the stairs of the hidden passageway and into a room across the hall before Delphine can find it in her to protest and somehow guilt-trip Eres into leaving early.

The first thing Eres says to her when the door closes is, “You need to hunt again.”

Serana turns to her, frowning. “What makes you say that?”

 _Her_ tone might be casual, but the look on Eres’ face is anything but. Eres is nothing if not observant, and right about now, Serana feels a bit too much like Eres can see right through her.

“I like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at being able to tell when you’re hungry.” She sits heavily upon the bed, looking up at her, and even the act of doing that seems to tire her. “That’s three times since we left the Embassy.”

Eres drops her head, rubbing at her eyes. Serana wants to take her into her arms, to lay with her and sink into her warmth as she sleeps. She will not be able to, tonight - Eres is right.

“This isn’t normal.”

That is an understatement. Serana looks away from her, curls her fingers into the sleeves of her shirt, if only to ground herself, to keep from reaching for her. If she reaches for Eres now, she will not want to let go of her again for some time. Before she’d know it, she’d be in bed with her, listening to the lullaby of her heartbeat as she slept on beside her. But it would not bring her peace, this night—only temptation. She would drive herself mad in that way.

“Serana,” Eres sighs. “What is it? You’ve been acting strangely since—since Solitude, really. Is it something to do with me?”

No, Serana wants to say. _Yes,_ is the real answer. “Eres, you should sleep. I need to hunt.” It’s easier not to answer that, right now. It’s easier to pretend this conversation can wait a little longer.

Something in Eres’ eyes changes. It happens so quickly that Serana almost believes she had imagined it.

For a moment, there is a flash of something like anger in her eyes, a flash of something heated and fiery, and Serana has so rarely ever seen that look directed at _her_ that she tenses at the sight of it—but then, just as quickly, it is gone, buried and hidden away, locked deep behind walls that Serana has still not managed to break through. Walls that, somehow, Serana feels like she is responsible for. Like it’s her fault that Eres keeps rebuilding them, just when Serana thinks she has gotten them to fall at last.

Eres takes a breath, then, in a way Serana has seen her to do far too often to mistake for anything else. It is the way that Eres steadies herself, the way she centers herself when she is upset and doesn’t want to show it. The way she acts when there are things she wants to say, but cannot. Serana has never wanted to make her feel that way, and that gnawing ache begins in her chest again, eating her from the inside out.

“Okay.” Eres says, and her voice is carefully even. Carefully controlled. Carefully devoid of any emotion that Serana could have parsed from it. “Go. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Her mouth opens, opens to say something, anything—but no words come to her. Nothing that seems adequate. Nothing that seems fitting. Nothing that will close this divide she’s imposed between them.

And so, Serana flees. It seems to be the only thing she is good at doing, these days.

* * *

It is nearing dawn by the time Serana returns. Helgen had not been far, but the bandits had taken her longer to pick through than she’d planned on. Longer still for her to find a target who did not reek of skooma. Then, just for good measure, she’d found a second, and drained that one, too. Surely, then, surely with twice her fill, so much that she almost felt sick with it, _surely_ she would last a bit longer than a single day without feeding.

She pauses at the door when she enters Eres’ room, half expecting to feel it again—half expecting the burn in the back of her throat, the dryness of her mouth, the feeling of a creeping heat inside her—but when she lays her eyes upon her in the bed, curled beneath the covers, Serana feels nothing but the desire to climb in, herself. No hunger. No burning. Just the cozy warmth of her love for her. _Finally_.

Eres stirs when her weight sinks into the mattress, mumbles something under her breath. Were it anyone else, Serana might have been concerned for her lack of awareness—a person in her room, on her bed, and Eres doesn’t so much as flinch. But she knows that Eres knows it is her, that she knows she is safe. Serana lays beside her, pulls her close, and chuckles when Eres swears suddenly.

“Your hands are _freezing_ ,” Eres mutters, her voice a half-mumble with sleep. And yet, she still huddles closer to her. “Where were you?”

“Helgen,” Serana answers. Eres’ eyes are still closed. She is not quite asleep, anymore. From the sound of her heart, Serana knows that Eres will likely not sleep again, this morning. Eres has never been very good at getting back to sleep once she has been awakened. Or, at least, once she is awake enough to speak. Still, Eres does not move to get up, and Serana hopes she will not tire of lying in bed for a while. She had never understood why mortals enjoyed such a thing so much until she had Eres in her arms.

“Bandits?” Eres yawns. She huffs, after, as if annoyed with her own body.

Serana hums her agreement. A hand finds its way to Eres’ hair, threading fingers through the soft, silken strands—and she smiles when she finds the still-moist ones underneath, lying against Eres’ neck. Still not dry. Serana is glad for her short hair, sometimes. It seems like a pain.

“Are you alright, now?”

“Somewhat,” Serana admits. Somehow it is easier to admit things in the dark. She hopes the courage will stay with her when the sun rises.

“Somewhat?”

Serana sighs. She squeezes her a little tighter, if only for her own comfort. “I’ve been hungrier, lately. I don’t know why.”

Now, Eres does open her eyes. She shifts next to her, propping her head up on a hand to look at her. “Is that why you’ve been acting so weird? When did this start?”

“Solitude,” Serana says automatically, but then she finds herself frowning, her brow furrowing. “Actually—maybe a bit longer than that. I’m not sure. It’s only become obvious recently, I guess, though it could have been going on longer than that and I just hadn’t noticed. Maybe I’d been attributing it to using too much magic or something, before.”

Now she wonders, though - how much of her hunger then had been due to magic use or wearing herself out? How much of it had just been the very beginning of this problem she has now? “I don’t know. It’s—this isn’t how it’s supposed to work.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “How what is supposed to work?”

“Vampirism, in general, I suppose.” Serana shrugs, as best she can in such a position. It is not a dignified movement. “Generally, the older we are, the less often we need to feed. We get—better, I suppose, at spacing it out. And even if we don’t feed regularly, we can generally go without for a while before it becomes a problem. Well,” she adds, “purebred vampires, anyways. Halflings and such tend to go feral if they go without for too long.”

Eres nods - this is not news to her, Serana is sure. She _had_ been part of the Dawnguard, after all. “But it’s the opposite for you? Has it always been, and it just sped up recently?”

“No.” Serana frowns. “That’s what’s strange about it. I’ve never had a problem with it before. But now…” She shakes her head. She doesn’t want Eres to blame herself for this, somehow. But it is true that it had not started until _after_ she had met her. “Maybe it’s some kind of side effect of being buried away for so long.”

Eres does not look particularly convinced by that theory. Serana can’t say she blames her - it doesn’t seem very likely that that would be the case. That, and Serana had not had any issues when she’d first awakened. From the growing look of suspicion in Eres’ eyes, Serana knows that she must be piecing it together, herself. And she dreads where the conversation will lead. But she cannot run away from this. She will not run away from this. Eres deserves more than that. Eres deserves everything she can offer her, and more. Including the truth.

“You never had a problem with it before. I even bled in front of you dozens of times, and you were fine.” Eres says slowly, eying her searchingly. “This only started…” Serana sees the understanding dawn in her eyes. The sudden realization of it. It strikes Eres so much that the girl actually sits up in bed and stares down at her, stunned. “This started after we—got together,” she says.

Serana sits up, herself, already missing the warmth of her. She contemplates it, but decides against tugging Eres back into her, at that moment. “It seems that way.”

“It’s me, then.” Eres says. “Is it because I’m Dragonborn?” Eres mutters, and she frowns, almost more to herself than Serana. “Maybe absorbing dragon souls makes the blood more potent…?”

Serana stares at her. That had not been the conclusion she had expected Eres to reach. She’d thought Eres would—would _get it_. Would just _understand_. Would _know_. Increasingly, Serana feels the pressure of feeling as though she may have to actually explain it.

The thought alone is mortifying.

“Eres—how much do you actually know about vampires and feeding?”

Eres looks back at her, snapping out of her musings. She seems fully awake now, at least, though Serana does feel a bit bad for waking her up so early. Even so, she looks far more alert than she had the night before. Already, there is a razor-sharp intelligence in her eyes.

“Not much,” she admits. “The books we had at the Temple tended to focus more on killing vampires than feeding them. As I’m sure you could imagine.”

Serana rolls her eyes. “What a surprise. I don’t imagine the Dawnguard were much better?”

Eres shrugs helplessly. “I don’t think either of them too much cared about how you feed. Or—whatever,” she adds. “The whole point of them was stopping you from doing it at all, so…” another shrug. “Not much in the way of examining the machinations of it.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Eres raises her brows at her. “I’m guessing there’s a point here, somewhere.”

“There is.” When Serana does not immediately elaborate, Eres gives her a pointed look. “It’s—a bit…uncomfortable to talk about. I’ve mentioned before how turning someone can be—intimate, haven’t I?”

“Maybe?” Eres makes a face. “I don’t remember. Sounds familiar.”

“It’s—not only restricted to turning.” Serana says quietly. “Feeding can be, too.”

Eres leans back on her hands. Despite the absolute mortification Serana feels, Eres seems to be taking it rather well. Almost _too_ well, if you asked her. “I don’t see what this has to do with—” Serana can almost see the moment she realizes it. Could almost have pinpointed it. “Oh.” Eres straightens, looking at her. “Oh, that makes sense now.”

Serana quirks a brow at her. She _can_ _’t_ have gotten the full context if she’s being this casual about it. Serana knows it. “Does it?”

“Yeah,” Eres says easily. “I’ve already told you I’m okay with it. Maybe not _today_ , but—” Serana claps a hand over her mouth before she can continue. Eres scowls at her from behind her hand.

“Stop talking,” Serana says quickly. “Don’t just say things like that when you don’t know what it actually _means_.”

When it seems as though Eres won’t immediately blurt out anything else, Serana removes her hand. “Are you going to let me talk now?”

“That depends entirely on what you’re going to say.” Eres glares at her. “No more of this talk about feeding.” She sees Eres’ mouth open, and cuts her off before she can speak. “ _No more_ ,” she repeats. “Not now.”

“Well, it’s a problem _now_ , if you haven’t noticed. What are you going to do if we can’t even talk about it? If it’s that much of a problem—”

“Don’t,” Serana warns. “I’m not going to feed on you.” When Eres sighs in what looks like disappointment, Serana has to look away for a moment. “That’s not a solution.”

“Fine,” Eres says, waving a hand dismissively. “Then what is? Would your mother know anything about it?”

“Oh, no,” Serana says.

“She wouldn’t?”

“No, she would. That’s why I said _oh no_ ,” Serana mutters. “I _really_ don’t want to have to go to her about it.”

“Is there an alternative?”

Serana groans, dragging a hand down her face. “No.” But. “I can’t leave you to deal with the Thalmor on your own.”

“We’re still ahead of them,” Eres says, shrugging. “And I can handle a few Thalmor on my own.”

She does _not_ like the sound of that. “I’m not doubting that,” she says carefully, “but I still don’t like the idea of leaving you on your own right now.”

“The Thalmor don’t even know what I look like.” Eres says. “Unless they got that cook to say something, but how well could she possibly describe me? She only saw me for a few seconds before Malborn got me out of there. I’ll be fine on my own for a couple of days while you go to your mother.” Serana _still_ doesn’t like that. Eres can plainly see it, too, going by her expression. “I’ll be _fine_ , Serana. I managed Coldharbour alone.”

“Don’t remind me.” Coldharbour is just about the last thing she wants to think about normally, but especially _now_. It just reminds her of another time when she had not been able to be there when Eres needed her most. “And you had—help, then. You weren’t even really yourself.”

“Debatable,” Eres says, and shrugs.

“You don’t even remember most of it.”

“I don’t, but,” Eres says pointedly, “it’s not like I _was_ a God. I was just…” she makes a face. “Possessed. Or something.”

“Or _something_ ,” Serana mutters. “And Isran and Inigo went after you.”

“After I’d already been there for months on my own.”

Serana’s heart sinks. She had known—there had been a part of her that had _known_ , of course, but to hear it confirmed… “Months?”

“I think?” Eres says it more as a question than an answer. “It feels like it was a long time. A lot longer than a couple of weeks. I don’t know,” she shrugs. “The point is that I was there by myself for a lot longer than when Isran and Inigo were there, and I was fine. _And_ ,” she adds, “I fought _him_ on my own, too. I think if I can handle him, I can handle a few Thalmor, Serana. I’m not made of glass.”

“I know that, but—” but it still doesn’t feel right. It still feels like something terrible could happen if she leaves her. “I don’t like it.”

“We all must confront things we dislike,” Eres says, and her voice shifts into a particular tone, with a particular Valen burr. She even adopts the haughty expression to go with it. “It builds _character_.”

“That’s—genuinely a little terrifying, actually.” If Eres’ hair was a bit longer, she could have passed for her mother’s twin. Hell, with a bit more practice and the right costume, Eres could pass for her _now._ “Don’t do that again. I’ll feel like I’m kissing your mother.”

Eres scrunches her nose up at that. “Does this mean you’re attracted to my mother, too?”

“ _Eres._ _”_

“Well, _are you_?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“So you _are_.”

“Eres, _no—_ she’s too old for me.”

“You are _literally_ four thousand years old.”

“I was asleep for most of that.” Serana argues. “And I was twenty-five when I was turned.” Eres squints at her. “What?”

“I’m going to be older than you in a couple of years,” she mutters, looking distinctly unhappy with that fact. “Physically, anyways.”

“Elves age slower. You’re fine.”

But Eres considers her a moment, looking suddenly far too serious for how silly their conversation has become. “What about when I’m old?” She asks. “Old and grey. What then?”

Serana shrugs. “I’d turn you before then.” Eres smacks her shoulder, and she laughs. “I like you _now,_ _”_ she says. “I wouldn’t want to watch you get old and waste away.”

“But if you couldn’t turn me.” Eres is not actually joking, Serana realizes. She actually wants to know. “What then?”

“I would be with you,” Serana promises, and makes sure that Eres sees that she is equally as serious. She means it. _Gods,_ but she means it. “Until the very end.” Eres is not smiling. How could either of them smile, at such a thing?

“You’ll have to watch me die, one day,” Eres says quietly. “Even if it’s a long time from now, I—”

“I don’t care.” Serana says, and she _means it_. She doesn’t care if that’s what happens, in the end. What matters is what she has _now_. “If that’s how it goes, then…” She shrugs helplessly. “I’ll just love you as long as I can. I’ll be grateful,” she tells her softly, “for whatever time I have with you. Even if it’s not forever.”

Eres moves, suddenly. Before Serana knows it, Eres is in her lap, arms wrapped around her shoulders, looking at her with an expression that Serana cannot say she’s ever seen on her before. There is a softness there, a tenderness that makes Serana feel weak for seeing it, that makes her skin buzz and her heart swell and her breath stutter in her lungs.

In her eyes, Serana sees a reflection of herself—a reflection of the way she looks at Eres, of the love she feels for her, of that deep, soul-encompassing, unspeakable depth of affection that cannot be named or quantified. It is a look Serana has, somehow, managed to keep showing on her own face, she thinks – but now she sees it in Eres, and it is though her lungs cease to function.

She had never thought anyone would look at her like this. She had never thought anyone could—she had never believed that anyone could love _her_. Let alone Eres, who is so much more than she could have ever earned in any lifetime, and yet—

And yet.

Eres looks at her, and Serana feels that love expanding within her chest, warming her, cradling her, soothing her—and in that moment, in that breath of a space of time, Serana feels alive.

Eres’ hands raise to cup her cheeks, to pull her in for a kiss that Serana could not have wanted more—soft lips pressed against her own, as firm and unyielding as the love she feels for her in her heart.

Her heart, which Serana could swear she had felt beat—for just a moment.

Eres does not say it, then. Serana knows it, all the same. She can see it in Eres’ eyes, feel it in the way she kisses her, like they are the last two people in the world. Like Serana is the only person who matters.

Eres loves her, and Serana cannot remember a time when she has been happier. She doesn’t even particularly mind when Delphine comes to kick them out—if Delphine hadn’t, Serana wonders if they might have ever left. Perhaps they might have stayed there forever, wrapped up in each other for eternity as the world turned around them. The world could have ended just then, and Serana might not have cared at all.

Eres, however, does care. As she cares about all things. Not for the first time, Serana wonders how she has space for all of it inside her. How can she fit so much care in her for the people around her, when Serana feels like Eres takes up so much of it in herself? Like there is no space for anything else besides her.

“Go to your mother,” Eres says to her, one hand on the horse Delphine has allowed her to borrow that will take her away—away from Serana, away from the Thalmor. Away to Riften. Without her. She says it like Serana could ever imagine leaving her side so easily. “Then come find me.”

Even so, Serana knows when she can argue, and when she cannot. It is for the best, she tells herself. It is better to handle this now, while she still has her head firmly attached to her shoulders, while she is still able to reason through the desire that sometimes takes hold of her. It is better to do it now, than for her to lose herself to it, lose control—if she were to ever hurt Eres, even on accident—perhaps _especially_ on accident, she would never forgive herself. Serana will do anything if it means keeping her safe. Even if that means she does have to leave her, for a time.

It’s for the best, she tells herself. Again. Perhaps if she tells herself that enough times, she’ll eventually come to believe it. Eres will manage without her for a day or two. Everything will be fine.

“I’ll make it quick.”

“Take your time,” Eres replies, shrugging. “If it takes a little longer for you to figure out what’s going on — then do that. Riften is safe.” Serana raises a brow at her. “It’s sort of safe,” Eres amends. “It’s at least safe from the Thalmor, if nothing else. It’s Stormcloak territory. If the Thalmor want to come get me in Riften, they’d have to fight through every able-bodied man on the way there. I’ll be _fine_ , Serana. Just go.”

“And what about after Riften?” When Eres just sends her an exasperated look, Serana grins. “I’m kidding.” Mostly, anyways. She doesn’t trust the Stormcloaks with Eres’ life, but it _is_ true that they hate the Thalmor. As long as Eres makes it to the Rift before they catch up with her, the Thalmor will have to wade through a sea of enemies just to reach her - and that was assuming they knew what she looked like to begin with. Serana is still not _comfortable_ with leaving her, perhaps, but it does settle her slightly. “I’ll find you, wherever you end up.”

Eres smirks at her. “Bloodhound,” she says, amusement plain in her eyes.

Serana decides not to rise to that bait. “Is there anything you want me to tell them?”

“Who?” Eres asks. A beat, and Serana can see the discomfort that rises behind her eyes, as much as she might try to hide it. “No,” Eres says then. “Just that…” She shakes her head. “I’m working on getting some coin together.”

“Eres—”

“That’s all I have to say.”

Serana sighs. Stubborn mule of a girl, she is. Yosef had _tried_ to apologize before they’d left Fellburg, before. Or he would have, if Eres had not avoided him like the plague and left before he had the chance to. Now, Eres is convinced the man hates her, and will hear nothing otherwise.

“Alright, then,” Serana agrees, because she can do little else. Eres will figure it out, eventually. Whenever she stops avoiding Fellburg long enough to realize that the people there don’t hate her, she supposes. Whenever that might be. Nothing Serana says could convince her. That’s something Eres will have to see for herself before she trusts it.

Eres swings herself up into the saddle with surprising grace for someone so short. It feels strange to look up at _her_.

“Is this what it feels like for you?” Serana jokes.

Eres looks at her with confusion, at first. Then her expression morphs into a scowl. “Ass,” she mutters, and throws Serana a particularly rude gesture with one hand.

Serana catches that hand with her own, squeezes it. “Be safe, Eres.”

Eres reaches down to her, then, brushes away a lock of hair, a caress against her cheek. Somehow the gesture seems more tender, more loving, than if Eres had kissed her. “Mara watch over you,” she says, and then, with a quick, parting smile, she is on her way. On her way, away from her.

Serana feels Delphine step beside her. “I don’t think Mara watches over my kind,” Serana remarks dryly, if only to pretend that Delphine has not born witness to such a moment between them. It makes it easier to pretend she is not embarrassed if she redirects the attention to something else.

“Fool,” Delphine mutters lowly, shaking her head. “You really are out of touch, aren’t you?” When Serana frowns at her, Delphine scoffs, with a roll of her eyes. “I was under the impression you had some intelligence about you. What realm does Mara rule over?”

 _Love,_ Serana’s brain replies immediately. “Oh,” she says, feeling suddenly very stupid.

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Delphine says, and actually reaches up to thwack her over the back of the head like a scolding aunt. Serana cradles the spot more out of shock than actual pain— _Delphine_ , of all people? Did she just have some kind of aura about her that made older women treat her like this? “Idiot.”

Perhaps she _is_ an idiot. But if she is, it is only because Eres makes her that way. She can't say she's terribly upset about that. A bit of idiocy is a small price to pay for the gift she has been given. 

* * *

“Daughter,” is the first thing Valerica says to her, when Serana finds her in the tower, thankfully alone. Valerica’s eyes shift to either side of her, and her brows pull together. “Where is your… _friend_?”

They really do need to put a name to it. The careful tip-toeing around it by both themselves and everyone around them is getting a bit ridiculous, at this point.

“She’s on her way to Riften.”

Valerica raises a brow. “And yet, you are here,” she says, with considerable suspicion. “Has something happened?”

“Yes,” Serana answers. She considers sitting. There is a chair next to her mother’s alchemy table. Valerica is near to it, hovering over a tome laid out in front of her on a small desk she has placed beside the table. She could sit in that chair, have this conversation with her, and that would be very much normal.

But sitting in that chair somehow feels like walking into a trap. Like once she sits down, she might never be able to gather the strength to rise again. Or, worse yet, that she might never be able to _explain_ what is happening, if she cannot pace the room and avoid her mother’s gaze while she does it. “No.”

Valerica’s eyes narrow. “Is it _yes_ , or no?” she asks. “I imagine you have come to me for a purpose, Serana.”

Valerica looks back down at her notes. Serana has never been very good at reading her mother’s expressions - she is more of an enigma than Eres has ever been. She cannot tell what the woman is thinking.

“You would not have come to me otherwise.”

Something about that feels accusatory. As though Valerica is purposefully pointing that out - _Yes, Serana, I know you_ _’ve come to me because you need something. Because you never speak to me if there is not something that you need._

It’s… not entirely untrue. Serana can’t argue that. Even after the death of her father, she and Valerica have never quite repaired their own relationship. They are still not as close as they once had been, many ages ago. Before her father had become obsessed with that prophecy. Before, when Serana would have said her happiest place was at her mother’s side in her study, learning all that Valerica could teach her.

They have come a long way since Harkon’s defeat and her mother’s retrieval from the Soul Cairn, but they still have a long way to go, yet.

“I need… your help, with something,” Serana manages. It feels like she’s drowning in anxiety. How can she explain this? How can she make it make sense?

“Go on.” Valerica is listening. She is not looking at her, but she is listening. That makes it easier, somehow. In the back of her mind, Serana wonders if she does it on purpose - if perhaps her mother _knows_ that she needs that distance. That she needs that casual disregard to be able to speak to her like this. To be able to come to her for help.

Especially for something so personal.

“I’m—” Serana considers telling her up front. _Mother, I_ _’m going insane. I’m hungry all the time now. I think it’s Eres’ fault—or she’s causing it, somehow._ She might have, were she a well-adjusted individual who could speak of such things so openly. She does not. There are too many ways her mother might misconstrue it, too many conclusions she might jump to that she doesn't want to confront herself. “Have you—have you ever heard of a vampire becoming… _less_ able to control themselves? Over time?” She has a thought. She has an idea, maybe. She's hoping it could be something else. 

Valerica does look at her, then, a measuring look in her eyes. “In which way?” She asks. Her voice is perfectly level. Perfectly controlled. Perfect in the way that it is merely a question, not a judgment. Perfect in the way that it does not put Serana on edge, that it does not make her feel defensive. For now. 

“In—” Serana sighs. She turns away from her, her legs moving on their own. She begins to pace. Somehow the movement makes it easier. Perhaps it is just the distraction, of having at least a small part of her mind freed from the constant doubts and worries. “In the way of hunger. I’ve… been having trouble, recently.”

Serana hears the sound a quill being set down against parchment. Of the rustle of fabric as her mother turns to face her. When Serana turns to pace back in the other direction, she finds her mother’s eyes following her, sharp and calculating as ever.

“Trouble?” Valerica repeats. “You must be more specific if you wish for me to help you.”

Serana swallows. She crosses her arms over her chest, turns her eyes away from her. She cannot say it, looking at her head on. Even saying it _now_ feels—feels insurmountable, somehow. She takes a long, steadying breath. It does not ground her as she had hoped it would.

“I’ve… Eres and I—”

“Ah,” her mother says, and nods sagely as though she _knows_. “I see.”

Perhaps she does. Perhaps Serana doesn’t have to explain it. Perhaps her mother just _knows_ , because—because her mother is older than her, and more experienced, and surely, her mother has experienced something like this before. Surely, Serana doesn’t need to say it out loud.

“I need it to _stop_ ,” Serana says. “Tell me how to fix this.”

“ _Fix_?” Valerica repeats, and her brows raise. At once, Serana feels it - the weight of her gaze, the weight of her mother’s expectations upon her, the weight of her judgment. Valerica looks at her like she should know better. Serana has _always_ hated that look of hers. “This is your nature, Serana.”

Serana grimaces. “Don’t—”

“Don’t _what_ , my daughter?” Valerica asks her. “Perhaps I have misunderstood you, but I am fairly certain I know the ‘problem’,” Valerica says the word in a way that is not quite mocking, but feels like it all the same. “That you speak of. In all honesty,” Valerica sighs, then, crossing her own arms. “I should have foreseen this. Truth be told, however, I imagined you would have resolved this long before it became an issue. That is more my failing than yours, I expect. You have always been—resolute, in your restraint.”

“You _knew_ this would come up?” Serana asks. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I have made it a point not to be too involved with my child’s sex life,” Valerica drawls, and Serana wishes the ground would swallow her whole. “I assumed you would—succumb, in a manner. I suppose that I underestimated your resolve.”

Serana realizes it, then. “You thought I’d already bitten her.”

At that, Valerica scoffs. “I thought you would have by now, yes. As I said, it is in your nature to dominate.”

Serana’s brows snap together. “I’m not _dominating_ anyone—”

“And just what do you think it is that draws you to her so, oh daughter of mine?” Valerica retorts, her tone near to scathing - it is the tone she takes when someone is being particularly stupid in her presence. “You are a _vampire_ , child. You are a product of the Prince of Domination. Did you not think this would affect you? Did you not think perhaps your _baser_ needs would influence you?”

“I’m not a _fledgling_ , Mother.”

“Then _stop. Acting like one_.” Valerica snaps back, voice equally as cold. “Yes,” she says quickly, “you love this Vigilant of yours. I will not speak of your taste.” Valerica waves a hand dismissively. “But with love comes desire. That is to be expected. _Your_ problem, Serana, is that you have chosen one who may as well be an addiction.”

“What the hell does that mean?” What is her mother _getting at_?

Valerica clasps her hands in front of her waist. The expression upon her face softens, becoming something that is almost empathetic. Almost motherly. “She yields to you.” Serana stares at her, uncomprehendingly. “And therein lies your problem.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Eres? _Yielding_ to her? Eres doesn’t yield to anyone, let alone her.

“There is a certain push and pull to a relationship. There is one who leads,” Valerica says, “and one who follows. At times, these roles may shift, may reverse, but there is always a balance to maintain.”

“That's not—”

“Hush, child. You may yet learn something.” Serana scowls at her, but quiets. “Eres—it is within her nature to yield, just as it is in yours to do the opposite.” When Serana frowns, Valerica holds up a hand. “Let me finish. That does not mean she is weak. On the contrary, even I must admit that she is much stronger than I originally gave her credit for. She is—odd,” Valerica says, haltingly, a strange expression flashing over her features, like she doesn’t quite know what to make of her. Like she doesn’t know how to put it in words. Eres tends to have that effect on people. She certainly has it on Serana, herself.

“Eres is a woman who gravitates to leadership. There is a certain air about her that encourages those around her to lay their lives in her hands. Perhaps that is the nature of being Dragonborn. Perhaps the people around her can sense the power lying dormant within her.” Valerica shrugs. “However, there is something else about her that has always struck me as…unusual, perhaps. She _does_ lead, yes. In many ways, she is a leader. She does what she must. But her _reasons_ for doing so—that is where she differs, I believe. There is something in her that allows her to understand the needs of those around her and rise to meet them.”

“In some cases, this means stepping up, taking control where it is offered. She will lead, when no one else can or wishes to. This is, to my understanding, how she became Keeper, is it not?” Serana nods. She’s still not quite certain what her mother is getting at. These are things she already knows. “The point is that Eres—she does not lead simply because it is her nature to be a leader. She leads because it is what _others ask of her_. She _yields_ to the needs of those around her.”

Serana blinks.

Something, somewhere, slots into place.

“ _Yielding_ ,” Valerica continues, “does not always look like submission. In many ways, it is more akin to adaptation. She adapts. Shapes herself into what others wish for her to be. Eres, herself,” Valerica continues, “is what others have made of her. There are times I wonder how much of the Eres we know is merely a facade she has crafted to fill the role she believes she is destined for.”

Serana sits down.

She’d known this. Sort of. She _had_ known this, to an extent. Somehow, it feels so much more monumental when she hears her own conclusions from Valerica’s mouth. Somehow, it seems so much deeper when Valerica puts what Serana has _felt_ into words, into words that make far too much sense. Serana has always felt like there is a side of Eres that so few people get to see. That even _she_ has only seen so few times. She has wondered, more than once, how much lies hidden behind Eres’ guarded exterior, how much she has left to learn about her.

That Valerica can see it, too, just as well as she can—does she _know_ Eres? Or does she only know the Eres that Eres _allows_ her to know?

“This does not mean that Eres herself is a facade, entirely,” Valerica says, voice unusually soft. It is as though she can sense the direction of Serana's spiraling thoughts. “I do not believe there is a single soul on this earth who knows her better than you. Out of anyone, it is apparent she holds you closest to her heart. Do not give way to doubt, on that end. I say this only to illustrate the point that you must come to understand.”

Valerica steps closer to her, places a hand on her shoulder, and squeezes. It is, perhaps, the most _physical_ affection Serana can ever remember her mother showing her. They had never been a very tangible family. Her mother might as well have embraced her, might as well have held her in her arms.

“Eres,” Valerica says, “is an _addiction_ , to you.” Serana stares up at her, disbelieving. “She yields to you, and thus you feel a modicum of control. You push, and she meets you in the middle. You retreat, and she waits for your signal. _You_ disrupt the balance,” Valerica rubs her shoulder, as if to comfort her. “She maintains it. She is your balancing force.”

“I—”

“That is why you struggle.” Valerica tells her plainly. “Your desire for her has eclipsed your restraint. Your self-control can only go so far as keeping you from the things that you do _not_ want. There is only so far it can take you when it comes to things that you _do_. I imagine you’ve found yourself in quite the predicament, have you not? An increasing hunger…” Valerica removes her hand, tugs at the hem of her sleeve as if to straighten what is already perfectly placed. “Goes hand in hand with sexual desire.”

“ _Mother!_ _”_

“Do not _mother_ me,” Valerica scoffs. “It is the truth. You know as well as any that our nature conflates the two. You are not a monster, Serana. You are merely a woman,” and Valerica takes a breath, then, and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Who, apparently, has heretofore never come to grips with her sexuality—”

“Please stop talking.” Serana buries her face in her hands. This isn’t what she came here for. She’d just wanted a solution, not a— _whatever_ this is. She doesn’t want to hear this from her. Doesn’t want to hear it from anyone, really, but, _least of all_ from her. Hadn’t it been bad enough when Mirabelle said it? Wasn’t that _enough_?

Perhaps she’d been stupid to hope that—that _that_ had nothing to do with it. That maybe there could have been some other explanation that her mother would know of. That maybe she’s not just—some kind of _savage_ who can’t control herself, who can’t separate the two.

It makes sense, of course. Serana cannot say that it doesn’t. Can she even remember a time where she had ever been interested in _anyone?_ Serana only remembers the exasperation she’d felt at the thought of _romance_ —the annoyance, even disgust towards it, at one time. She had once held herself above that. She had once thought— _she_ would never be like that. _She_ would never fall prey to that.

And yet.

“Do you want my help, or don’t you?”

“Just please stop talking about—” She can barely bring herself to say it aloud. This is her _mother_ , for Divine’s sake. “Just. Never mind. Forget I asked.”

Valerica quirks a brow at her. “I am afraid that _is_ the problem, Serana. With your current — predicament,” she says haltingly, “you will need to be careful. Your desire for her may overwhelm you, in the moment, if you are not careful. Her blood is more powerful than most.”

“Fine, okay, just—just tell me how to make it stop and we can never talk about this again.” Right. Yes. Just tell her the _solution_ and she will walk out of here and perhaps never look her mother in the eye again. 

“Well,” Valerica glances away from her. “I am sure there are books for that sort of thing.”

“ _Mother_ —” Serana starts, only to stop when she sees her mother shoot her an amused smirk. She hates her. She’s going to hate her forever for this. This is hardly something to laugh at. Serana has spent _days_ fretting over it. _Bitch_. “I meant the _hunger_.”

“So did I,” Valerica says, and Serana wants to throttle her, a little. “If you wish to approach it more—safely,” her mother continues, “perhaps you might convince her to allow you to partake in potions made of her blood. Allow yourself to acclimate to it, before it can get the better of you in a… _passionate_ moment.”

“Please never say _passionate_ again.” Actually, she kind of wishes that Valerica would just stop talking, period. But _definitely_ about this.

“Gladly,” Valerica agrees, “if you never come to me about this again.” As if Serana _would_. As if she'd _wanted to_ in the first place! 

Pointedly, Valerica hands her a contraption that Serana has not seen since her days at the castle. She had not even known Valerica _had_ a blood extractor on hand. She does not ask why she has it—she probably doesn’t want to know. She's probably better off not knowing, all things considered. 

“Use this. Feeding directly from her at this point may prove too dangerous, since you apparently have decided it better to drive yourself feral first.” Serana scowls at her. She is _not_ feral. “This should at least help to reduce your—urges,” she says, “in some part. I would suggest making sure that you do not drink it all at once. Dragonborn or no, she will need time to recover from each extraction. It will do you no good if you are forced to wait weeks between doses.”

“And that’s all?”

Valerica shrugs. “That is all I can suggest, for the moment, if you intend on keeping things—chaste, a while longer.” Oh, she’s going to throw herself into the void. She doesn’t know how, but she’s going to do it. She’s going to summon up a giant black void to Oblivion or wherever the hell else and jump right into it. 

“Your hunger should become less potent, once you have—addressed the cause, so to speak,” and Valerica does not need to go into detail. Serana knows exactly what she means, and she did not think she could _be_ more mortified, but her mother is, apparently, a woman of many talents. “Until then, you may wish to continue using the blood potions as a way to circumvent the effects.”

Serana tucks the extractor into her satchel and stands. She looks at her mother, and her mother looks at her, and there is only one thing she can think of to say.

“I would like to pretend we never had this conversation.”

There is a pause. Her mother stares at her for a moment, expression blank—and then she starts to laugh.

“ _Mother_.”

“My apologies.” Valerica meets her gaze, pressing her lips together, wiping her expression to neutrality. There is still a glint of mirth dancing in her eyes. Serana scowls. She’s still laughing on the inside, Serana knows it. “ _What_ conversation, exactly?”

Serana drags a hand down her face. She’s never going to live this down. “I’m leaving.”

“Yes, yes,” Valerica calls after her. “Tell your _lover_ I said hello.”

Serana slams the lab door behind her, just to make a point of it. If it’s up to her, she might avoid her mother for the rest of her eternal life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i originally was gonna skip the serana/valerica discussion and just move on to eres but. my so-called beta said i absolutely must include it so enjoy the silliness i suppose? lol can’t be dramatic all the time i guess


	8. Lockstep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is long af but hopefully that makes the wait worthwhile i guess? lol idk.

Riften has not changed since Eres had last been there. The guards are still crooked, the streets are still dirty, Keerava at the Bee and Barb is still a right _twat_ —but Eres stays the night regardless, because she certainly isn’t the sort of customer who would find a place at the bunkhouse. Or, as everyone knew, what was not so much a _bunkhouse_ as it was an undercover brothel.

There is only one reason an inn owned by a woman would be _only for the working man_ , and neither Eres nor any other citizen of the Rift is stupid enough not to know it. Luckily for Haelga, the guards in the Rift are just morally bankrupt enough to allow it. Hell, knowing Riften, the guards might even be her best customers.

It takes Eres longer to sleep than usual, for reasons she hesitates to give name to. It hasn’t even _been_ so long since she and Serana have—elevated their relationship. Why now, then, did she find it more difficult to sleep without her? How quickly she has gotten used to the feeling of being held in the night. How quickly she has allowed herself to become spoiled with the affection Serana offers her.

It hadn’t been so long ago that Eres had traveled alone, worked alone, fought alone - and now here she is, waking in a sour mood for the sole reason that she does not have company.

There is not even Inigo to brighten her spirits, left behind as he was. Eres tells herself he is safer for it. With the Thalmor on her trail, having Inigo along would just be putting one more person in danger who did not need to be.

Eres rises, pays the innkeeper, and, with considerable reluctance, makes her way down the familiar stairs and into the tunnels that will lead her to the Ragged Flagon. If nothing else, at least the drawbridge is down - she will not have to wander through the Ratway’s tunnels to find her way to the Flagon again, waylaid by miscreants and vagrants alike.

The last time she had found herself in the Ragged Flagon, she had been naught but an apprentice to Altano. To be here without him feels discomfiting, as if she belongs here even less without him to serve as buffer. It had been Altano who had dealt with these people the last time, who had already had connections with those who made their home here among the Thieves Guild. And so her passage had been largely uncontested. Now, she does not have him to open the door for her, she does not have a connection that allows her free passage.

As is very quickly demonstrated when she crosses the rickety wooden bridge, and all eyes turn to her.

“Oy,” says one of them, voice low and gravelly, his eyes dark and suspicious. “What’s this, then?” He stands, almost deliberately slowly as though to make himself appear larger, appear more dangerous. “Who the fuck let you in here?”

“I let myself in.” Eres says. She does not allow him to bother her. She’s faced worse. “I’m looking for Brynjolf.”

“You must be mistaken, _girl_ ,” says the first man, sneering at her.

“Now, hold on,” another man says, this one with dark russet hair and a certain intelligence in his eyes the other one sorely seems to lack. He holds up a hand, halting the man before he decides to do something monumentally stupid. “Let’s hear what the lass has to say. Why is it you come looking for me?” He eyes her, up and down. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

“Not met, no,” Eres admits. “But I’ve been here before. I was a Vigilant. I came here with a man named Altano last time.”

“Ah…” Brynjolf nods. “And where might he be now?”

“Dead.” If Brynjolf is at all shocked by this information, he doesn’t show it. “This isn’t about him. I’m looking for a man who might be hiding out in these tunnels somewhere. Have you seen anything?”

“You think we’d tell _you_?” The first man snorts.

“Depends on how much you like coin.” Eres does not have so much of it left, but if it will loosen their lips, she is willing to sacrifice it. “I’ll pay for whatever information you can offer me.” On an afterthought, she adds, “ _Provided_ it is good information.”

“Alright,” says the yet-unnamed man, crossing his arms over his chest. He sniffs. “What’re ya offerin’?”

“Five hundred, if you know his exact location.” That’s all she even has, period. She can’t offer more than that. “Less, if not.”

“Well,” Brynjolf steps forward. “That’s quite a load of coin you have there, lass. Can’t imagine you came across all that upright.” He smiles, in a way that she supposes he must think is charming. “Perhaps you are of a similar mind as we are. Perhaps,” he says, “you might do us a favor - and we do _you_ a favor in return. What do you say?”

“I don’t have time for a favor.” Not that she’d do it, even if she did. She’s quite certain whatever _favor_ he has in mind would put her on the wrong side of the law. She’s got enough problems without getting herself thrown into the Riften dungeons. “I have coin. Take it, or leave it. If you don’t want to help, then I’ll find him myself.”

“Oh, yeah? And just what makes you think we’re gonna let ya—”

“Delvin.” Brynjolf says the man’s name, and he quiets at once. “How about this, lass?” He asks, then, looking back at Eres. “We’ll _let_ you look around for this friend of yours - whoever he may be. In return,” he says, and he smiles again, “we’ll consider you owing us a little favor in the future. Of equal value.”

“I don’t make deals with criminals.” The words leave her before she has the chance to second-guess them. It’s the truth of it - she doesn’t, she never has, but—Inigo had been a criminal, once. Hell, _she_ could be considered a criminal, in some ways, even if only to the Thalmor themselves. She’s not really in the position to be sitting on a high horse, here. She shakes her head. “I’m _not_ going to steal for you, or do anything illegal.”

Brynjolf merely watches her for a moment, tapping his chin in thought. Then, “Alright, lass. How about this. Since you were friends with Altano—” Eres just barely keeps herself from grimacing at that, “we’ll let you go on. But, one day—I might ask you for a bit of help. I expect you to come through.” His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll make sure whatever favor we ask of you won’t go against your…delicate sensibilities.”

“Whatever.” It’s always _something_. Everyone always wants her for something.

“Remember, girl,” he says to her. “You don’t want to make an enemy of the Thieves Guild.”

She very nearly laughs in his face. From what _she_ _’s_ heard of them, she has nothing to fear. She moves past him, heading for the door she already knows is there. She ignores whatever he says after that - she has no time for him and his games. Or for any of them, really. If she was a lesser person, she might have just cut her way through them to save the time. Her _delicate sensibilities_ made things harder more often than not.

The Warrens have not changed since she saw them last, either. They are still just as drab, just as moist, just as dreary—and just as rancid. Eres pulls her scarf over her nose, for what little good it will do.

When she finds herself back in the very corridors she had once found the Khajiit Jo’vanni in, she almost expects to trip over his rotting corpse. She could not have thought of anyone who might have made the effort to bury him.

But there is nothing. She remembers exactly where his body had laid after she’d killed him. She remembers because she had blacked out right next to it, experienced that strange memory, and then she had returned to that body, later, with the pelt of his fallen love. And now both he _and_ the pelt are gone. Nowhere to be seen.

But there is still the woman.

“Bucket. Inkpot. Knife. Book. Stone.” Still repeating the same words, over and over again. “Pelt.”

Eres freezes mid-step. Her eyes snap to the closed door on one side of the room, the one the woman must hide behind. _Pelt_? Could it be she had somehow been the one to deal with Jo’vanni’s remains? Had she then taken Campener’Ra’s pelt for her own?

There is something about the idea that troubles her. Something about it feels as though she should do something to correct it, that she should go in that room and find out where this woman had put Jo’Vanni’s remains if only so she could reunite he and Campener’Ra once more.

She had gone through so much just to make sure he had passed on peacefully, and now it seemed to be in vain. Is Jo’vanni’s spirit troubled again, once more? Wandering around all of Skyrim looking for the pelt of his lost love? If he was, would he not have found some way to find her?

Or, and Eres must consider this as well, had she ever really seen Jo’vanni’s spirit at all, down beneath the Beacon? Had her returning the pelt to him _ever_ truly made a difference? Did it matter, in the long run?

Maybe it did. Maybe it does, still. But interrogating an unwell woman _now_ would do nothing but slow her down. She has to find Esbern. She has to get him to safety, before the Thalmor come looking for him here, as she is. She doesn’t have time to worry about Jo’vanni and his eternal peace—or lack thereof.

Eres turns away from the door, and puts it out of her mind. She tries to shut her ears to that woman’s grating voice, ignoring it every time she hears it: _“Bucket. Yes. Knife. Yes. Pelt. Yes…”_

It’s not her problem, anymore. _It_ _’s not her problem._ She had done all that she could for him.

She keeps moving, taking the stairs two at a time. She checks every door. Peeks into every room she can find. Until, at long last, there is a door she cannot open and cannot peek through.

It is a door that sticks out among all others, reinforced heavy wood, with a small viewing hole cut into its surface and braced with metal. The door itself is reinforced with wrought iron, and more locks than she can even hope to pick through, even if she did have the skill to do it. There’s only one person she can think of who would be paranoid enough to install _this_ much security in the Warrens, of all places.

It _has_ to be Esbern. She’s sure of it.

Eres raises her hand, and knocks twice. She hears nothing on the other side of the door, but it is a nothing that feels put upon, like the silence of something in hiding rather than something that does not exist. She remembers Delphine’s warning words: _If you think **I**_ ** _’m_** _paranoid_ _…_ Esbern wouldn’t open this door for just anyone.

“Esbern?” She calls through the door, loudly to be sure she is heard through its thickness.

The view window slams open with such fierceness that she actually flinches.

“There is no one here by that name!” A voice snaps at her. She can only see a pair crisp blue eyes with wise wrinkles creasing the skin around them, heavy white brows creased with indignation. This must be Esbern. “Go away!” The windows slams shut again, so hard that it bounces back just the slightest bit - just enough that she knows her voice will carry through.

“The Thalmor are after you. They know where you are.” The man does not reappear at the door, and she hears only silence behind it. She hopes it is the silence of a man who is listening to what she tells him. “They had a dossier on you,” she continues. “They knew you were hiding in the Ratway. I came here to find you so we could get you out before they found you.”

The eyes do not reappear, but she hears him scoff. “As if I would believe you! How do I know you’re not just a Thalmor agent, elf? You could just be one of them!”

“Delphine,” she says simply. “She said to ‘remember the 30th of Frostfall’. Whatever that means.”

A pause. Then, much less violently than the first time, the man opens the window slit in the door again, and peers out at her with eyes that look upon her not with scorn and suspicion, but with consideration.

“Yes…” He says slowly, eying her searchingly. “I remember… I remember it well. She is—Delphine is still alive, then? You’d better come in, then. And tell me how you found me.” His voice lowers, turning somber. “And what you want.”

“She’s alive,” Eres confirms, “and she’s waiting for me to bring you to her. We probably don’t have much time.”

“Yes,” the man says, blinking slowly. It seems to take him a moment to catch up with what she’s said. “Yes, of course. Just a moment. Allow me to just…” The window closes again, and she hears the sound of metallic clicking beyond the door, not unlike the hollow sound of a tumbler within a lock sliding home. “This’ll just take a moment,” he says, over the sound of it.

Eres waits impatiently on the other side, unable to help the feeling that she is being watched. She turns her head, peering around her, half expecting the Thalmor to be waiting around the next corner. She even perks her ears, strains to hear beyond Esbern’s clamoring, but she hears nothing. No footsteps. No voices. Nothing out of the ordinary aside from the _drip-drip-drip_ of the cistern’s moist walls and ceilings.

Finally, the final lock disengages, and the door swings open ahead of her.

“Come in, come in!” Esbern urges, beckoning her. “Make yourself at home.”

Eres steps inside, and the man slams the door shut behind her. Her hand instinctively falls to the hilt of her blade - she does not think he will try anything, not really, but she has never found having a door shut behind her to bode well for her future.

Esbern, however, does not seem to share quite as much trepidation. He even turns his back on her, walking to one shelf placed against a wall, and crosses his arms as he leans casually against it.

“So,” he says, his expression unreadable, “Delphine keeps up the fight, after all these years.” The smile that crosses his lips then is wan, wistful, colored with just a tint of regret. “I thought she’d have realized it’s hopeless by now. I tried to tell her, years ago…” He shakes his head regrettably.

Eres frowns. “What do you mean, _it_ _’s hopeless_?” She asks him. “ _What_ _’s_ hopeless?”

He looks at her like he believes she is quite daft. “Haven’t you figured it out by now?” He asks, and there is a touch of scorn in his voice. “What more needs to happen before you all wake up and see what’s going on around you? _Alduin has returned_ ,” he breathes, “just like the prophecy said!”

Oh. Right. That. She’d thought he had meant something else.

“The Dragon from the dawn of time,” he continues, and she is no longer sure if he is speaking to her, or himself. “Who devours the souls of the dead. No one can escape his hunger, here or in the afterlife. Alduin will devour all things and the world will end. Nothing can stop him! So it is written,” he says quietly. “So mote it be.”

“I tried to tell them. They wouldn’t listen. Fools, all of them. I was right all along, and now look where we are… All I could do was watch our doom approach…”

“I was under the impression there’s a way to stop Alduin.” Or, perhaps that’s merely what she had preferred to believe. Wasn’t that the whole _point_ of her being the Dragonborn?

“Oh, there is,” Esbern confirms. “But we’re doomed, all the same. Only a Dragonborn can stop him, and none have been known for centuries.” She opens her mouth to respond, but the man continues, hardly taking a breath, “It seems the gods have grown tired of us. They’ve left us to our fate. Left us to become the playthings of Alduin the World-Eater. Left us to become his final meal…”

“It’s not hopeless,” she interjects, before he can start rambling about something else. “I’m the Dragonborn.”

Esbern looks at her, and barks out a derisive laugh. “Yes,” he says, chuckling. “You are the Dragonborn, and I am Tiber Septim.”

“Do you _want_ me to Shout you into a wall? Because I can.”

He looks at her, for a long moment. At first there is naught but suspicion in his eyes, his expression openly dubious—but perhaps there is something in her expression, in her eyes, that changes his mind. She sees just the tiniest flicker of light enter his eyes, the resignation and doom-saying aura that hangs around his very person lifting, for just a moment.

“Can it be true?” He wonders, and he looks at her with something so close to awe that she feels uncomfortable beneath it. She doesn’t _deserve_ a man to look at her like that; like she is his savior, his deliverance, before she’s even done anything to deserve it. “A Dragonborn…? _You_?”

“I know,” she sighs. “You expected a Nord.”

Esbern, surprisingly, gives her an odd look. “No,” he says simply, “I expected someone older.” She stares at him. “It takes—many years,” he says, “to master the _Thu_ _’um_ , even as Dragonborn. That you have done so, so young…”

“Well, I wouldn’t say _mastered_ ,” she mutters. She knows all of two Shouts the Greybeards have taught her—to call her a master of anything is being a bit generous. “I’m working on it.”

“It matters not,” Esbern rushes out, and he is away from the shelf in the blink of an eye, moving across the room far too quickly for a man of his age. Before she knows it, he has a bag in one hand and is shoving items and trinkets into it with the other. “You are Dragonborn - that means we have a chance. That is more than we had. You will take me to Delphine?” He asks when he passes her, bag in hand, to grab things from his shelf.

“That is the—”

Shouting, above their heads. Hurried, heavy footsteps in plate metal.

“Shit.” Eres swears under her breath, pulling her sword from its sheath. “They’re here.”

“Thalmor…” Esbern breathes. “I just—must grab a few more things—”

“Look, old man,” she snaps at him, “that sounds like an entire squad of them up there. We don’t have time for you to grab souvenirs!”

“They’re not _souvenirs_!” He argues, “This is important research, decades of research—”

“Well _fucking hurry up—_ _”_

Eres sheathes her sword again, hearing the footsteps closing in on them. There is a long hall leading to this door—one she hopes she can take advantage of, for however long she can manage it. She pulls her bow from her back, wrenches the door open just enough to prop it open with one foot—and fires an arrow at the first body she sees coming toward her.

There’s a yelp, a cascade of Aldmeri curses, and a thump as the man topples off the edge of the long hall to the lower floor below. Eres hears the cackle of the madwoman down the stairs, almost as if the woman had seen it herself.

The Thalmor in the hall raise their shields, slowing their approach. “It’s the Blades agent!” Cries one of them, “Remember our orders! _Capture her!_ ”

Eres is so surprised by _her_ being named as the Blade agent that she nearly misses her next shot. Nearly. Not that her aim helps; her arrow pings uselessly off the helmet of an approaching soldier, leaving little but a tiny dent in its wake.

_Damn it._ Between the shields and their armor, she can’t rely on her bow to drop more of them before they reach them. She slams the door closed once more, pressing herself against it. This time she does not draw her sword—though she does consider drawing Dawnbreaker. Perhaps, if she’s lucky, she could draw it to surprise them, blind them temporarily with the light just long enough for her and Esbern to get a headstart.

But how much would that even help? Esbern was a man clearly past his prime. Would he even be able to run at all, let alone from _Thalmor_? Was she just fucked, no matter what she did? If she’d been _faster—_

_“Esbern!_ ” She snaps, when she sees him squatted near a bookshelf, looking over the titles in front of him. “We have to _go_!”

“Alright, alright!” The man hops up, surprisingly nimble, and throws his bag over his shoulder. Then, to her surprise, she sees him reach for a stave she had not even seen in the room. The end of it alights with magical energy as his hand closes around its shaft. “I’m ready. Let’s see if we can’t teach them not to underestimate an old man.” He shoots her a little smirk. “Open the door. Let’s show them what for.”

Eres eyes his staff, and wisely, steps to the side. She pulls the door open, pressing herself behind it—and feels a wave of incinerating heat pass on the other side, followed by agonized screams. When she steps out again, she wastes no time in admiring Esbern’s handiwork. Instead, she brandishes her blade, and takes the hall at a run, leaping over the still-smoldering corpses left in the wake of Esbern’s fiery volley.

“I hope you have some charges left on that staff—” Eres says, just a moment before she feels a blooming heat upon her back. Something white-hot and scalding passes on her left side, the reddish-white form of a Flame Atronach gliding ahead of them both. The Atronach makes it to the end of the hall, spins, and starts lobbing balls of fire down to the other end.

“Don’t you worry about me,” Esbern tells her. “I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve, never you mind.”

_Fine by me_ , Eres thinks, and the two of them fight their way through the winding tunnels, encountering wave after wave of Thalmor soldiers and mages and Eres does not relax once they reach the Ragged Flagon, does not stop to speak to those within it—she keeps moving, leading Esbern through the winding corridors of the Ratway, and it is then when she sees them - Thalmor at the end of the very hall they need to take to escape, at the very same time that she hears a cacophony of shouts behind her.

“Bollocks,” Esbern mutters, and he turns, pressing his back against hers. “I don’t suppose you have a soul gem on you.”

“ _Now?_ _”_ She almost wants to smack him for asking. She might have, if she did not have other things on her mind. There are four, five—no, _seven_ Thalmor charging toward her down the exit hall. She does not want to chance looking back over her shoulder and taking her attention off their approach, but by the sound of them, there may be just as many approaching from the other end—they’re _fucked_ , well and truly.

“Should’ve charged this bloody thing more often,” Esbern mutters, but she hears the sound of a summoning, and heat at her back once more. She does not know how many summons Esbern has left in him - calling an Atronach is hardly child’s play. His reserves will run out of eventually, and then where would they be—

There is the sound of thunder, a crack of lightning through moist air so loud that sharp pain lances through her eardrums, near sending her to her knees from the wave of dizziness it brings upon her—and for a moment, she thinks she’s been hit. For a moment, she fears that bolt had hit _her_ , and her brain has simply not caught up yet with the fact that she is most probably dead.

Then, she hears the sound of several Thalmor crumpling to the ground at once ahead of her, of panicked shouts rising ahead of her as the remaining spin to face something behind them—and another sharp crack of lightning, and another sound, a sound Eres is all too familiar with, a sound that brings with it such strange comfort that Eres almost sags with relief—

_Schwick_!

The Thalmor closest to her drops to one knee with a cry of pain, and Eres takes the chance to kick him over the ledge of the wooden bridge he stands upon.

And just behind him, lightning crackling in one hand and ice in the other, is Serana, her red eyes fierce and too-bright in the dim light of the Ratway tunnels.

“Miss me?” Serana quips, quirking a brow at her with a quick smile—and she throws out her hand, snapping a lance of ice just over Eres’ left shoulder. There is first a yelp of pain, and then an equally loud yelp of surprise from Esbern, just behind her.

“Vampire!” Esbern gasps out, spinning, and his staff is raised and aimed at Serana so quickly that it’s only Eres’ instinct that allows her to smack it off to the side, disrupting his aim—a bolt of fire erupts from its end and slams into the far wall, searing the brick dry and blackened.

“She’s with us, idiot!” Eres’ hand closes around the staff before she can think better of it, and she’s already snatched it from him and hurled it to the ground below before her logic catches up to her ire. She probably shouldn’t have done that. The way Esbern gapes at her like a fish out of water is evidence enough of just how valuable that staff had likely been.

“But—” Esbern’s mouth flaps open and closed uselessly for several seconds. The heat of fire builds in one of his hands as he looks between them. “She’s a vampire—”

“Yes,” Eres says, perhaps more snappishly than would have been polite, “you’ve said that already.”

“You—”

“Just _shut up_ and come on.” She scowls at him, daring him to attack her again. “And don’t even think about hurting her.”

“Is _this_ the type of company you surround yourself with, Dragonborn…?” Esbern wonders, and she notes that he shuffles several steps behind her, keeping his distance.

Eres just sighs, refusing to dignify that with a response. Instead, she meets Serana where she still stands, just several meters from the door. “You made it just in time.”

“Seems that way,” Serana replies, and though her tone is casual, the sharpness in her eyes is not. “This is Esbern?”

“The very same,” she confirms. “Were there any more of them?”

“Not that I saw.” Serana shakes her head. “I caught the last of them coming in the door as I got here. I could smell them from a mile away,” she adds, with a wrinkle of her nose, and as if for good measure, she kicks at one of the Thalmor by her feet. He groans miserably, and Serana blinks. “Oh, he’s alive.”

“It’s fine,” Eres says, before Serana can think to end him. “We’ll be long gone by the time any of them can walk again. Did you _have_ to deafen me?” Perhaps she’s being a bit dramatic, but when Serana merely rolls her eyes, she finds herself grinning.

“I’m _so_ sorry. Excuse me for expediting the process,” Serana drawls, and she waves a hand ahead of her, not quite with a flourish, but more of a sweeping gesture, an indication for her to take the lead. “Next time maybe I’ll let them stab you a little first.”

“You wouldn’t,” Eres shrugs. As if she could take Serana seriously on something like that.

“A _hem_ ,” Esbern says, coughing conspicuously. “If we could, perhaps, get _out_ of the sewer filled with Thalmor hunting me, I would appreciate it.”

“Actually,” Eres notes, even as she does move ahead to the door, “it seemed like they were looking for me.” When Serana looks at her, Eres shakes her head. “They seemed to think I was a Blades agent. They said ‘capture _her_ ’, not _him._ _”_ It’s possible it had been a mistake on the Thalmor’s part, but something tells her that’s not the case.

The door opens, light spilling in from the daylight outside, and it takes Eres several seconds to be able to see without squinting in its brightness. Only once all three of them have climbed the stairs into the Riften market does Eres feel herself relax, ever so slightly.

“Maybe the Thalmor decided you were the bigger target,” Serana muses. She has at least quelled the magic in her hands for the time being, but there is a tightness around her eyes and a tension in her body that speaks volumes of just how on edge she is, underneath the bluster.

“I think we’re fine, now,” Eres tells her, quietly. Unable to help herself, she reaches for her, closes her free hand around Serana’s, and squeezes. Her hand is soft and cool in her own, and Eres wishes she could step into her, greet her properly—for just a moment, Eres wishes she did not care for the opinions of those around them. But now is not the time for that. She can last a while longer without kissing her hello, she thinks. “I don’t know how they even managed to get that far into Riften as it is, but I don’t think they’ll chance attacking us in broad daylight in a Rebel city.”

“We _thought_ ,” Serana says, “that they wouldn’t come to the Rift at all. We were wrong about that.” Her eyes harden, her lips pressing tightly together. Her hand tightens around Eres’. “If I hadn’t shown up when I did—”

“It would have been fine.” Eres says that with much more confidence than she feels. There had been a _lot_ of them. Could even her _Thu_ _’um_ have evened the odds, at that point, with her and Esbern surrounded on all sides? What would they have done with her, once they’d captured her? Would she have been taken back to the Embassy and thrown deep into Elenwen’s dungeon? Or might they have shipped her off to some other hidden prison of theirs? More importantly, what could they want with _her_? She brushes her thumb over the back of Serana’s hand all the same, hoping to assure her, even if she doesn’t feel so assured herself. She doesn’t like seeing Serana so tense, even if it is justified. “Eventually.”

The dubious look Serana gives her speaks a thousand words, if not more. “I don’t feel comfortable with us staying here any longer than we have to. We should keep moving. We don’t know if there are more of them around here.”

Eres considers that. And she has an idea. “We could borrow a few horses.”

“’Borrow’?” Serana looks at her, raises a brow. “Is that just another word for steal, here?”

“Semantics.” Alright, maybe she’s not _totally_ against stealing—but it’s for a good cause. She’s fighting the apocalypse, after all.

* * *

In Eres’ defense, she does plan on returning the horses to the Riften stables, eventually. It’s just that she doesn’t have the money for them now, and they’re faster than a carriage, and she is _saving the world_ —the stablehands wouldn’t mind, she is sure, if they knew what her purpose was. She’ll make sure to return the horses later, and if not, then that will have to be a debt she will repay. At some point.

For now, the horses are a necessity, and they only borrowed two of them - Serana could run faster on her own, after all, and horses weren’t too fond of vampires to begin with. There were a few with the Dawnguard who had grown accustomed to Serana after a time, but horses unused to the presence of a vampire often became too nervous, too panicky. It was easier for Serana to make her own way as Eres escorted Esbern through the hills of the Rift, following the paths she knows will take her west through the pass that rises through the mountains toward Helgen.

It is when they are at the foot of that pass, nearly a full day since leaving Riften behind them, that Eres stops.

Esbern, just ahead of her, pulls his own mount to a halt, looking back with a frown.

“What is it?” He pulls down his hood, peering suspiciously at their surroundings as if he expects to find the Thalmor hiding behind rocks and the snow drifts that still dot the landscape higher in the pass. He looks at Serana, then, who approaches them from the pass itself.

“Looks like they’ve finally cleared the bodies out,” Serana says, as she closes distance with the two of them.

“Bodies?” Esbern straightens in his saddle.

“Rebel ambush,” Eres tells him. She shifts in her own saddle, feeling sore and a bit numb. Walking is slower, but it certainly isn’t as uncomfortable as riding in a horse. It’s only been a day and already her thighs feel like she might tear them right open if she sits astride the horse’s wide back any longer. “Imperial soldiers got caught in the pass a while back.” Beneath her, Eres’ horse shifts uncertainly as Serana steps a bit too close for its comfort.

“Something on your mind?” Serana asks her. “I don’t think Helgen will be a problem anymore.”

Eres raises a brow at that, but she’s not going to ask in front of Esbern. Serana must have taken the time to pay the bandits a visit while she scouted the pass ahead of them.

“No,” she says. “But I was wondering—Esbern, do you think you can make it to Riverwood on your own from here, or with Serana’s escort?”

At that, Serana’s own brows raise, with clear surprise. Eres had not mentioned splitting up before now. “Am I a bodyguard, now?” Serana asks dryly. Then, “Where are _you_ going to go?”

“High Hrothgar.” Eres isn’t any happier about that than anyone else would be, but the sour expression that passes Esbern’s face is unexpected. Whatever issue Delphine had with the monks at High Hrothgar, it seemed she was not alone in that. Esbern doesn’t seem any fonder of them than Delphine had been. “I have to return the Horn to them, and…” She sighs. “I’m sure they have some new task for me.”

“Bloody monks,” Esbern mutters, but he shakes his head, sighing with resignation. “It is our duty as Blades to protect and serve you, Dragonborn,” he says, with a great deal of reluctance, “as it is _their_ duty to guide you in your path.”

Eres stares at him, a bit taken aback despite herself. She had expected him to argue against it. She’s certain Delphine would have, had she been there.

“If you must see them, it is best you go now—it will take some time for Delphine and I to pool our resources.”

“What resources?” Eres asks, genuinely curious. “I thought there was nothing left of the Blades.”

“There is _almost_ nothing,” Esbern says. “But—” he pauses, his expression tightening for a moment. “Well. That remains to be seen.” Whatever he had been about to say, it seems he had changed his mind. “By the time you are finished with the Greybeards, perhaps we will have something useful for you.” Then, his dark expression lifts, ever so slightly, and he sends Eres a wry smile. “While I appreciate the offer, I am sure you wish to have your companion at your side, rather than mine. I may be old, but I believe I can manage a few more miles on my own. Riverwood is just through the pass, is it not?”

“Well,” Eres ignores the heat that rises to her cheeks. They had been _subtle_ , she thought—apparently, they need to get better at hiding it. “Just through the pass, past Helgen, and down the other side of the mountain. It’s not far. Just follow the road until it splits, and then take it northeast. You can’t miss it.”

Esbern nods, and pulls his hood back over his head. When he looks at Eres, there is a bit of a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Don’t take too long, now,” he says, and chuckles to himself even as he urges his horse ahead. “Ah, to be young again—”

Eres drags a hand down her face, groaning. “Are we that obvious?”

“Apparently.” Serana doesn’t seem to mind it too much - at least not when Eres is under scrutiny, rather than herself. Even when it does happen to be her getting the brunt of it, at least _she_ can hide the embarrassment. Vampires don’t blush. At this point, vampirism is going to start sounding like a good idea. “What makes you want to go to High Hrothgar so suddenly? I didn’t think you were too fond of them.”

“I’m not.” She isn’t. Her last interaction with them certainly hadn’t been the best. She recalls, with some embarrassment, how she’d acted the last time she was there—looking back now, it isn’t one of her finest moments. “I was stubborn—”

“ _You?_ ”Serana gasps, pressing a hand to her chest. If Eres had something to throw at her, she would have. She settles for glaring at her, which only makes Serana laugh.

“Shut up,” Eres mutters. Okay, so she’s stubborn a lot of the time. So what? “They asked me to do something for them and I was an ass about it. Turns out it was kind of important.” If the definition of ‘kind of’ was _majorly_. As in, apocalyptically important. She should have just done it on her way back to the Temple—Ustengrav wouldn’t have been more than a day or so out of the way from Dawnstar. She could have done it then, and what would have been another day, when Bartholo had already been dead by the time she arrived at the mansion, anyways?

Her mood sours, thoughts darkened by the mere memory of the mansion and the horrors she had seen inside it. She couldn’t even say it had been _the horror_ that bothered her most about it - it was that she had been next to useless. She’d been too late to save Bartholo. Too late for Marcus. Too late for Julius. Evil though he may have been, he had still been a child. If he’d had the help he needed after the loss of his mother, then maybe—

A hand touches her knee, and Eres hates herself for jumping. The horse starts beneath her, shifting several steps forward before she settles him. “Sorry,” she mutters, both to the horse, and to Serana, who she’d nearly kicked.

“You went somewhere,” Serana says softly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Just—thinking,” she shakes her head. “Reminded me of the mansion.”

“You never told me what happened there.”

_And I never will_ , is the first thought that comes to her mind, and she is ashamed for thinking it. She can tell Serana about this. It is not as though anything happened there she couldn’t speak of. There had been horrors, yes, but nothing compared to… Well. Compared to what Serana herself had been through with Molag Bal, the horrors Eres had faced in Bruiant seemed like little more than child’s play. She should consider herself lucky he’d never seemed interested in tormenting her physically, rather than just psychologically. She can tell Serana, of all people. She’d understand.

More than that, Serana might be the only person Eres is not afraid to show her failures to. Bruiant _had_ been a failure, even if she had not had much of a chance to begin with. She had failed, there.

She had failed Bartholo, and Julius. She had failed Stendarr. She had even failed herself, in a way, because she had given in—but she would not regret that choice. Not when it had ultimately kept Serana safe. Not when it meant that she could now live without him leering over her shoulder.

“It’s a long story. Let’s get a room at Ivarstead and we can talk there.” It will be nighttime by the time they reach the sleepy little town at the base of High Hrothgar, and Eres isn’t going to climb a mountain in the dark, vampire companion or no. That would just be asking for trouble.

“Sure,” Serana agrees easily.

“And,” Eres adds, eying her as she moves ahead, “you can tell me what your mother had to say.”

“…Sure,” Serana repeats, with considerably less ease.

Eres gets the feeling they might both be uncomfortable tonight, one way or another.

* * *

There were many perks of being a vampire. One of them was that Serana did not have to deal with the same biological processes that mortals did - including that of perspiration. As such, if one such as herself did not jump into a vat of mud or have an unfortunate victim bleed all over them, bathing was not strictly necessary for hygiene. That it was not strictly necessary did not mean she did not do it. In fact, bathing was quite a pleasant thing, for most vampires.

By nature, they cannot produce their own body heat. The blood within their veins is not warm, their temperature is overall much lower than that of a normal mortal, but that does not mean they don’t feel cold. Things like bathing and sitting by a warm fire are a couple of the only things that allows them to feel warm, at all, and it is a sensation that is just as pleasant for them as it would be to anyone else. Perhaps more so, since they are so often cold by default.

Serana doesn’t need to bathe any more than she needs to sleep with Eres at night - that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy it.

They still bathe separately, of course. Serana would be lying if she claimed to have never considered it. It would be simpler, especially in places like Ivarstead, where they did not have the luxury of aqueducts and running water and running a bath was a bit more of an ordeal than it would have been otherwise. They could just do it once, bathe together, and be done with it, rather than having to empty the tub each time and refill it for the both of them, which turns perhaps a half-hour event into more of an hour-and-half event.

And maybe there is a bit of romanticism, there, because bathing is such an intimate thing, and so doing it with Eres would also be intimate, and maybe there is a part of her that wants that—but they are not there, yet, and Serana does not know if she could.

They are both women, of course. Eres has nothing that Serana has not seen on her own body. Eres herself also does not appear to be particularly shy about such things, if the incident shortly after they first met meant anything. She hadn’t been _fully_ naked then, but she’d been close enough, and she had not seemed too embarrassed by it, even when Serana had been embarrassed for her.

Serana is not _shy_ , per se—she doesn’t think “shy” is the right word for it. She is not embarrassed of her body, either - she has nothing to be embarrassed for, and between her sheltered upbringing and her vampiric nature, she hardly even had any scars to speak of. She has nothing to hide.

That does not mean that being naked comes easily to her, as it had seemed to to Eres, that day. Being naked makes her feel vulnerable, makes her feel exposed, makes her distinctly uncomfortable in a way she cannot describe.

There is a reason she dresses so modestly, with pants and long-sleeved tunics even when the weather is suffocatingly hot, and it is not that she is cold. Something about that exposure feels too much like vulnerability, like she is weaker without that covering, like she is somehow more fragile in the absence of it.

She knows Eres would not hurt her. She knows, out of all places, that Ivarstead is perhaps one of the least likely places she could ever come to harm at all. She knows there is nothing that she _should_ be afraid of, nothing that she _should_ worry about. That doesn’t make her any less anxious about it.

She bathes in private. Dresses in private. Combs her hair in private. When she presents herself to others, she is immaculate, as ever, because she must be. Because then, people only see what she allows them to. It is easier that way, somehow.

Most of the time. Except when it comes to wanting things that would break through that. Like, wanting that intimacy with Eres—whenever that would happen, whenever that would be. She still, even now, cannot imagine being undressed in front of her.

That is a hurdle she will cross when they get to it, she tells herself. For now, what matters it that they are together, that she has someone who loves her, and that is enough. The future will come when it comes.

That being said, Serana is always just a little bit disappointed when Eres returns from bathing on her own. Just a little bit sad, when she comes back to the room, dressed down for the night. Because there is still a part of her that wants that intimacy, that is disappointed that she restricts herself from having it, even as much as the thought terrifies her.

“So,” Eres says, and she reaches to pull her hair into a tail at her neck before she climbs into the bed to sit beside her. “Who first?”

Serana, pointedly, pulls the hair tie out. She likes it down. How is she supposed to run her hands through her hair if it’s all tied up? That was the _point_ of Eres’ hair being longer than hers. She might not see herself wearing her own hair any longer than it is now, but she will certainly appreciate the fact that Eres has not chopped hers off just yet.

“Are you going to give that back?”

“No.” Serana puts it around the wrist furthest from Eres, just in case. If Eres wants to reach for it, she can—but Serana could easily stop her before she gets there. She hopes she won’t - they might never get any of this done, then, if they get too distracted. “I don’t mind,” she says, answering her first question. The satchel in her lap feels far heavier than it should. She’s not opened it yet. Part of her never wants to. “You go first.”

“I thought you said you didn’t mind.” Eres pulls her hair over one shoulder, fingers twisting to braid the damp ends.

“I don’t, but yours might be a shorter conversation.” That’s not quite a lie. It probably _would_ be a shorter conversation. But maybe she does mind. Just a little. Eying the braid, Serana makes a face. “You look like your mother when you wear your hair like that.” Auria’s hair is much longer, reaching nearly to her waist where Eres’ is much more reasonable, but it is close enough. “And you’re just going to complain about it curling in the morning.”

Eres drops her hands with a huff. “You took my tie.”

Serana smirks. “Pout a little more and I might give it back.”

“I don’t _pout_.” Eres scowls at her. The truth is that she doesn’t, really, but her scowl is just as cute. “What’s in the bag?”

“You first.”

“I don’t have a bag.”

“I meant about the mansion, dummy.” Eres does not reach for the bag, but she looks like she wants to, for a moment. Finally, she sighs, and leans back against the headboard.

“I don’t remember what all I’ve told you.”

“Basically nothing.” Serana tells her. “I asked you once, and you said you didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to press you on it.”

“It wasn’t—that bad,” Eres says, haltingly, but it certainly sounds like it was, given the way she’s acting. “It could have been worse.”

“A lot of things could be worse. They’re still bad. Is this one of the things you have nightmares about?”

Eres brow furrows, suddenly, and rather than looking bothered, she actually looks a bit contemplative, a bit baffled. “I actually don’t think I’ve had one since we started sleeping together,” she says suddenly, as if she’s only just realized it. Serana doesn’t blush, but Eres does - just a little. “I mean—”

“I know.” Serana will cut her a break this time. Mostly because it’s a little embarrassing for her, too. “At least we’re getting something out of me lying around for hours, I suppose.”

“As if you don’t like it,” Eres retorts, all too smug. “I don’t remember asking you to stay _all_ night.”

Serana shrugs. “Maybe I’m just using you for the warmth.”

“Ouch. Demoted to bedwarmer.”

Serana pulls her closer, all the same. Eres doesn’t complain, for all she feigns offense. “Tell me about the mansion.”

Eres sighs. “There’s not that much to tell, honestly. It was—it was a haunted house.” She shrugs. “There were ghosts and undead dogs, and I didn’t have a great time.”

“I’m sure it was more than that.”

Eres sighs, again, but reluctantly, she tells her. She tells her about the investigation - about finding out the Vigilants in Chorrol had left Bartholo to die, about the missing woman’s body, about how the mother had disappeared and the child’s personality had shifted, about the accidents and unfortunate deaths—and about getting locked inside on her own, how she had suspected it was a trap and she had walked into it, anyways. How she had known from the start that Molag Bal was involved.

“I thought the kid was a victim, but,” Eres shrugs. “It was him the entire time. He’d been the one to kill all those people there. And he tried to kill me, too.” And she’d killed him, and, damn it, she was _Eres_ , and of course Eres blames herself for not being able to save him.

“He was too far gone,” Serana tells her softly. “You know that, don’t you? You couldn’t have saved him. You did the best you could.”

“If I’d gotten there sooner—”

“If it had been you, instead of Bartholo,” Serana says, “then they would have just found _you_ dead there, instead. That boy was lost as soon as he’d left with his mother the first time. He was already gone by the time he’d returned, long before the Vigilants got involved. You can’t save everyone, Eres.”

“I have to try.”

“I know. You’re a good person.”

At that, Eres scoffs, looking away from her. “Tell that to Stendarr. He abandoned me.”

Serana remembers. She remembers the rusted Horn, the one that Eres still wears, even now, even with her past in the Vigilants long behind her.

“The Gods are—petty,” she says, as diplomatically as she can. When Eres snorts, she sends her a quick smile. “Stendarr will get over it, once he gets past his own ego. Maybe.” 

It’s not like she’s ever _met_ Stendarr, by any means, but—Eres had served him, for a long time. And Stendarr at least had seemed to care, in the beginning. His horn had helped her through the mansion itself, if nothing else, guiding her where she might have been utterly lost without it. It was Stendarr who had helped her to dispel Molag Bal’s cursed totems, even if he had done so through her blessed sword from Meridia. “Or maybe he hasn’t abandoned you, and there’s another reason for what happened to the Horn.”

Eres frowns. “Such as…?”

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine the Divines have much influence in Coldharbour—” Eres’ eyes widen so suddenly that Serana stops speaking. “What?”

“I just—” Eres shifts, suddenly, and Serana snatches her about the waist before she can leap out of bed.

“It can _wait_ until the morning, Eres. Whatever it is.”

Eres doesn’t quite relax against her, but she doesn’t make to move again. “I just thought,” she says, turning to face her, “Or—I remembered, the guy—or, whatever he was, the Inquisitor—”

“Who?”

“Pepe,” Eres says. The name sounds vaguely familiar. Had that been the man Isran and Inigo had kept encountering? “He said that they’d burned all the priests, that the Divines couldn’t help me there. And there were…” Eres’ brow furrows, then, and in her eyes, Serana can see her struggle to recall what she has forgotten. “There were these temples, everywhere. I—I feel like I went into them. I…” Eres sits back, her mind clearly miles away.

“Don’t force yourself too much.” Serana doesn’t want to think about Coldharbour’s temples, for one, but mostly—she’s afraid of what might happen if Eres tries too hard to remember things. Maybe there was a reason her mind had locked those memories away. Maybe it had been the only way her mind had managed to remain intact after what she had experienced there. Maybe it is the only reason Eres is still sane, now, despite having been the catalyst for not one, but _multiple_ Dragon Breaks within Coldharbour. Who was to say that her mind would not just shatter if she remembered these things?

“No, it’s,” Eres waves dismissively, but her eyes are still just as distant. “There were these places—these places I had to go or I felt like I had to go to, and they weren’t—they didn’t have memories, in them. There weren’t any dreams, there,” and now she sounds a little bit insane again. Wonderful. “But I saw things, there, like—like Mara’s temple, and the people who had served her. They—Mary was burned at the stake, and they led a march into the capital to avenge her death, and—and they were cursed for it, and they ended up in Coldharbour, and they mutated and became these, these monsters—”

“Eres.” Serana grips her by the arms, squeezing.

“They thought Mara abandoned them, too, but it wasn’t—it wasn’t _Mara_ who did it, it was Molag Bal. He deceived them into going against her tenets, but the curse was from _him_ , and the plague, not—”

“ _Eres._ ” Serana shakes her, just once. Eres blinks, several times in rapid succession—but her eyes focus on hers, again, and she is _present_ and aware and not rambling. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m not,” Eres says, and it is not quite a question, but more of a realization. That is a good sign, at least, that she knows how crazy she sounds. “I’m not, I know—I can’t— _explain_ these things in a way that makes sense…”

“And maybe that’s why you forgot them.” Eres makes a face. “Maybe you’re not meant to understand them. Maybe it’s something that’s just—too beyond you to get. Too beyond any of us. Just let it go, and don’t try to remember anymore.” Wryly, Serana adds, “You should consider yourself lucky. There are a lot of things about Coldharbour I wish I could forget.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you of it.”

“You didn’t.” She did, a little, but Serana isn’t going to tell her that. Right now, making certain that Eres doesn’t drive herself absolutely mad is more important than that. “It’s fine. You can—pray to Stendarr or whatever later, though. You don’t have to do it tonight.”

“Hmm…” Eres does relax again, though, slowly. Serana releases her once she seems less likely to leap out of bed given the chance. “The bag?”

“Huh?”

“The bag,” Eres points. “I told you about the mansion,” she says. “It’s your turn.”

Right. Because that had been the deal. Eres would tell her about the mansion, and Serana would tell her what had happened with her mother. The one topic she has been avoiding since she’d found Eres and Esbern in the Ratway.

Before, she’d been able to get away with using Esbern as an excuse - she didn’t want to talk about such a thing in front of him, she _couldn_ _’t_ —but now she doesn’t have that. And she _had_ said she would tell her.

Well, that, and the fact that Serana doesn’t have much of a choice to begin with. She _has_ to tell her. Sooner rather than later.

Wordlessly, Serana pulls the extractor from the bag, and sets it in her lap. Eres looks at it. Then back up at her. “What the hell is it?”

“It’s a blood extractor,” Serana says, as plainly as she can manage, as Eres picks the thing up and turns it over in her hands.

Eres, somehow, manages to look even more baffled _with_ the answer than she had without it. “How does this even _work_?” She mutters, turning it from one side to the other, peering inside the long cylinder. “Where’s the blood come out?”

“Give me that.” Serana snatches the thing back before Eres can get the bright idea to stick her arm inside it before she’s prepared to have Eres bleeding in her lap. That’s a test of her restraint she’s not looking to have just yet. If she’s expecting it, that’s one thing, but—here and now, when they’re in bed and already so close? That was just asking for trouble. “You—I’ll tell you how it works later. The point is—my mother thinks it will help.”

“With the hunger?” Eres makes a face. “I thought it was a better fresh sort of thing. I’ve never seen you bother with blood potions before. Well, except at the castle after…”

“I normally wouldn’t.” It’s true that she rather hates them, most of the time. “Cold blood really isn’t that appetizing.”

“So, what? You just carry potions around with you from now on? That’s not much of a solution.”

“If you’d let me explain,” Serana says, and Eres has the decency to look a bit sheepish. “My mother—” Eres looks at her, attentive and expectant and listening all too closely, and Serana does not know how to tell her this. How does she tell her _any_ of it? “She thinks—she thinks the hunger will fade, a bit,” she says haltingly, and she cannot bring herself to look Eres in the eyes, “if you were to…help.”

Oh, for Divine’s sake, she’s going to die before she gets it out. And the way Eres smirks at her is _not_ helping.

“Is this just a ruse to feed off me?” Eres asks, plainly amused. “We don’t need this for th—”

Serana covers her mouth with her hand, meeting Eres’ scowl with her own. “I _told_ you not to say that kind of thing.” She lowers her hand, revealing the frown on Eres’ lips. “You don’t know what it means.”

“I know it means we wouldn’t have to use a torture device just to feed you,” Eres says, then, tapping the side of it.

“It’s not a torture device, it’s—”

“A blood extractor, yes, you said that. You do realize that _sounds_ like the name of a torture device, don't you?” Serana glares at her. “What is it you’re not telling me? You already told me about it being _intimate_ , or whatever,” by the way Eres says it, it’s as plain as day that she thinks Serana is being dramatic, that she thinks she’s making a big deal out of nothing. It’s not Eres’ fault. She doesn’t _know_. “I don’t have a problem with it.”

“You don’t have a problem with it because you don’t know what it means.”

“You keep saying that, but you won’t actually _tell me_ what it means.” Eres tells her, her frown deepening. “I’m sure, whatever it is, it’s not that bad.”

Serana turns her head to look at the bookshelf by the door. There is nothing on it she hasn’t read before. It’s just easier than looking at Eres, in that moment. “It’s not— _bad_ , necessarily,” she manages. Barely. “It’s just—it’s—”

“Intimate? You said that.” Eres provides, unhelpfully. “I said I don’t mind.”

“It’s more than just—whatever you’re thinking it is. It’s—”

“Sexual?” Serana contemplates throwing herself out the window. It’s not too far. Just a few steps from the bed and she could be gone before Eres would even realize it. She could escape this conversation and then they could never talk about this again, ever, and Serana would just—she’d just have to find another way. “I figured that was the case,” Eres continues, _far_ too casual about such a thing. “I already said I don’t mind.”

“It’s not … that simple.” But saying it isn’t _simple_ means that it is complex, which means she’s going to have to explain it, which means that jumping out the window is not sounding like an overall terrible idea. Maybe she could write a letter. That would be easier. “ _I_ mind.”

“Oh.” Eres says, and suddenly she gets the feeling she’s said something _wrong_. She’s even more sure of it when Eres sits up and pulls away from her. “I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Serana has no idea what she’s apologizing for all of a sudden. Then she sees the guilt in Eres’ eyes, and knows what conclusion she must have jumped to.

“No, not—it’s not—that’s not _why_ I mind it, I just—” Serana buries her head in her hands. “I wish my mother was here.”

“Um,” Eres says, and Serana’s pretty sure that just makes it sound worse.

“She could explain it better than I can,” Serana clarifies. “I’m—not good, at this…this kind of thing. I don’t know how to tell you.” Why? Why is it so hard to just say it out loud? It’s not like Eres doesn’t _know_. She _has_ to know, Serana’s not that good at hiding it, she knows she can’t be. Eres probably wouldn’t even _care_. She wouldn’t mind it, she’s already said so—and still, it feels like there’s a lead weight in her stomach, like there’s this tightness around her throat, like she can construct and arrange the words in her mind but can’t force them to come out of her mouth no matter what she tries. Why can’t she just _say it_?

“Tell me what?”

Serana drags her hands down her face. “I’m attracted to you.”

For a moment, there is silence. Then Eres laughs. “I’m pretty sure I knew that already.”

“It’s not funny.” Eres’ smile fades. “I know—I know, that you knew that—it’s, obvious… Obviously…” Gods, is she _sure_ she can’t sweat? She feels like she might start, at this rate. Maybe she’ll be the first vampire to ever break into a nervous sweat. Maybe she’ll be the first vampire to ever have a heart attack, while she’s at it. “It makes me—” She can’t look at her. She doesn’t even want to be in the same room as her, right now. She’d thought speaking to her mother about it was mortifying, but this is far, far worse.

“Do you want me to guess?” Eres asks, and Serana could have kissed her. She could have, if she could have looked at her.

It feels stupid, and silly, and childish, but, “…Yes.”

“Alright.” Eres pats her on the knee. “I’m guessing this is a sexual thing for you, then. So,” she says, “this whole issue is because—being with me, makes you hungrier somehow. Or makes you crave blood more often, at least. Am I on the right track?”

“Yes.” The level of relief she feels can’t even be described in words. It’s like a tidal wave of it crashes over her at once. She can’t look at her, yet, but—but at least she doesn’t feel like flinging herself out the window anymore. Thank the _gods_ Eres is actually a smart girl. She makes stupid decisions, sometimes, of course, but she’s not actually stupid. Eres had probably suspected this from the start, and had been waiting for Serana to come to her. She kind of hates that her mother was probably right. “But it’s—yours, specifically.”

“Well, I _am_ a rare breed,” Eres jokes, and Serana is just surprised enough to laugh. “So, the actual _act_ of it—you’ve said it’s intimate.” Serana nods. “I’m assuming it has something to do with sex?”

“Not—quite…” Serana hesitates, because sometimes it is, she thinks, but—not all of the time. Maybe. It’s not like she’s ever _been_ in this situation before. “Sometimes?” Serana glances at her, worried, but Eres only looks—mildly amused, really. Totally unbothered.

“I feel like I’ve read a book about this kind of thing before,” Eres muses idly. She draws a shape on Serana’s knee. Serana tries to focus on the shape, tries to guess what it might be—it takes her mind off her mortification, if nothing else.

“Could you at least take this a little bit seriously?” She does look at Eres, then, and she is surprised to see Eres’ smile fall away immediately.

“I am,” Eres says, and Serana can see it in her eyes that she is, actually, and Serana just hadn’t seen it before. Maybe she would have, if she had bothered to actually look at her. If she had been _able_ to look at her. “I was trying to help you relax. I’ve never seen you like this before. I didn’t want you to think I was judging you for—whatever this is.” The hand at Serana’s knee stills then, and she sees Eres reach up to touch the silver ring on her ear.

“I have a lot of trouble talking about things too, sometimes.” Eres admits. “I keep a lot of things to myself, because it’s hard for me to say things out loud sometimes. Believe it or not, I was a lot worse when I was younger. But Claude used to joke about things to make it easier for me. To make it feel like it wasn’t—like it wasn’t so serious, I guess. Or maybe it just helped to lighten the mood a bit, take the pressure off a little. I don’t know.” She shrugs helplessly and sends Serana a rueful smile. “I guess it doesn’t work on you as well.”

“I’m sorry.” She shouldn’t have snapped at her. She should’ve realized, should have known that Eres wouldn’t… Serana _knew_ that Eres isn’t the type to make light of things normally. She should have realized that Eres had just been trying to help her, in her own way. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” Eres says. She draws a circle on her knee, now, and it almost tickles a little. Serana hadn’t even known she could be ticklish. “I’ll learn.”

She says it so simply. _I_ _’ll learn._ It shouldn’t feel like such a monumental statement, but it does. It feels like so much more than that. Like Eres is telling her, in so few words, that she loves her enough to find what works _for her._ Serana doesn’t think she’s ever had someone who bothered.

Her mother and father certainly hadn’t been the type, and she had never been much closer to anyone else from the clan, either. And the others, well—they were _Eres_ _’_ people, not hers. They were nice enough to her, but Serana would call them acquaintances more than friends. The only person besides Eres she could even claim to have any particular bond with was Yosef, and even that might not be what anyone else would consider a friendship.

“Go on,” Eres tells her. “I’m listening. I’m assuming there’s more to this?”

“There is.” She’s just going to say it. She’s going to say it, and get it over with, and they can finish this discussion and go to bed and Serana will never have to speak of it again ever in her life. Out loud, anyways. Hopefully. All she has to do is say it. Just one, quick sentence, and she can be done with it forever. She takes a breath, and she lets it tumble from her lips in such a rush of words she’s not even sure if _she_ could have understood it, let alone Eres.

Eres blinks. “I only caught—maybe half of that. Slow it down for me.”

“I said,” Serana breathes again. In, out. Simple. She can do that. “That feeding is a sexual thing for us, and—getting, uh,—excited, makes us hungrier, and—and my attraction to you makes it worse, so I don’t know if I could stop once I’ve started.”

There.

It’s out.

She’s fine. She hasn’t died. The world hasn’t ended. Eres hasn’t run for the hills. Everything is fine.

But Eres just looks at her. “The sex, or the feeding?”

“What?” It takes her a second to get it, but, “ _Oh_ , no—the feeding! I don’t want to hurt you, I’m not going to—” she feels sick just thinking about it.

“I wasn’t implying that,” Eres says carefully, “I just wanted to make sure I understood you correctly. This extractor thing is going to help with that?”

“Well,” _help_ is a bit of a loose term, maybe. “It’ll help with the cravings, a bit.” Serana does not miss the twitch at the corner of Eres’ lips. “Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not.” Oh, she looks the very picture of innocent, of course. Which can only mean she absolutely is not, and is definitely laughing at her.

“You are on the inside.”

“A little,” Eres admits, and smiles a bit guiltily. “I’m sorry, it’s just—you said _cravings_.” Eres chuckles to herself, and Serana wants to die a little, again. “Do you _crave_ me?”

“Shut up.” She could shove her off the bed. But then she’d lose the heat of her, and she’s actually quite comfortable, now. “You know what I meant.”

“It’s still funny.”

“It isn’t.” Eres raises a brow at her. “Okay,” Serana concedes begrudgingly, “it’s a _little_ funny. But mostly, it isn’t.” Eres is lucky she can laugh about it. She’s not the one being embarrassed. “The point is that I can get used to the taste of you, and it won’t be as bad after a while.” Eres’ answering smirk is downright salacious. “ _Don_ _’t_ read into that.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You didn’t have to, I could see it all over your face.” Somehow, some way, she’s going to pay her back for this. She’d been nothing but supportive when Eres had told her of Bruiant, and this is what she gets? Teasing and perversion? “It’s just for the time being.”

“Sure.” Eres lets it go. Thankfully. “How do I use it?”

Serana does not hand it to her. “We can do it in the morning. I’m fine now—” she sees the look on Eres’ face and scowls, “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Eres throws her hands up defensively, and this time Serana throws one of the pillows into her face.

“You’re worse than a boy,” Serana mutters.

Eres tosses the pillow back at her. “It worked,” is all she says to that. When Serana glances at her, confused, Eres shrugs—and then smirks. “Joking doesn’t work with you _unless_ those jokes are dirty. I told you I’d learn.”

This time, when Serana presses the pillow into Eres’ face, she holds it there and pushes until Eres topples onto her back. “Learn to be less of an idiot, next.”

“You first,” Eres counters. She does not sit back up again, and instead of returning her pillow to her, she puts it behind her head and lays comfortably upon it. Serana scowls at her. “Did you really think this whole thing would bother me?”

“Well…” The truth is, she hadn’t. She’d known Eres would be fine with it. Eres had made that abundantly clear even before this conversation. Hell, long before they’d even kissed, she had been upfront that she would not have minded Serana feeding on her. She couldn’t say she had been worried for Eres’ reaction. She’d been worried because—because it simply feels _wrong_ , to her. It feels too much like _using_ her. Like Eres is little more than a thrall. 

“No,” she admits. “But this is still—new, to me,” she says, and it’s a struggle to even get that much out. “I didn’t want you to think—”

Eres raises her brows. “You know,” she starts slowly, and Serana can already tell that whatever she’s going to say next is _not_ going to be innocent. “You’re _supposed_ to want to have sex with me—” Serana, scowling, slaps her hand back over Eres’ mouth. She fucking _knew it_ _._

“Stop talking if you’re just going to make stupid jokes.” Eres nods behind her hand, and she releases her—reluctantly.

“Fine,” Eres says then. “I’ll be serious, then. You’re a vampire, and I’m not. This relationship was never really going to be what most people consider normal. I _expected_ you to want my blood, at some point. I kind of figured that was part of the package of courting a vampire.”

Serana opens her mouth, but Eres continues before she can speak.

“I’m not saying I feel obligated, before you misunderstand me. I’m only saying that I knew this would be a factor. If it bothered me, I would have told you a long time ago. I’d hope you would tell me, too, if there’s anything that might make you uncomfortable. Is it going to be a problem if I bleed in front of you, now?”

“No, unless you’re bleeding when we’re—” Serana closes her mouth, then, and decides it’s probably better not to go into detail. “I can restrain myself, most of the time. It’s only a problem sometimes.” She doesn’t need to illustrate what those times are. Eres is a smart girl. She gets it.

Eres, however, frowns. “…Wait, what about—”

“Eres, _no_ —that’s disgusting.”

Eres holds up her hands. “I had to ask, okay. It’s still blood.”

“There’s a difference.” Not that Serana is going to get into it with her, but—there’s a reason vampires don’t just go into a frenzy existing around regular mortals, and their lack of any real appetite for _that_ is part of it. Otherwise being a vampire would be downright maddening. Serana has heard of clans who—engaged in that sort of thing, but the Volkihar had certainly not been one of them, and it had always been considered crass and uncivilized to _her_ people. Most of the time, honestly, Serana doesn’t even notice it at all. It’s simply one of many things you eventually tune out without thinking about it. If only it was so easy for other things… “We don’t do that.”

“Good.” Serana sees a mirror of her own grimace pass across Eres’ face. “I would do a lot of things for you. That is not one of them.”

Eres reaches for her then, clasps a hand around her arm, and tugs until Serana lays next to her. For a brief moment, only the ceiling is above her—and then Eres’ head appears above her own, a weight settling comfortably on her chest. Warmth blooms there, in the places that Eres touches her, and even in places she does not. “I’m starting to think there’s still a lot I don’t know about vampires.”

“’Starting’?” Serana jokes, and grins a little when Eres pinches her side.

“Is there anything else I should know?” Eres asks, then, and this time she is not joking at all, but entirely serious.

“Hmm…” Serana considers it. There are other things she could say, now.

She could tell her that she worries for her strength, sometimes. Or that she prefers when Eres doesn’t use strongly scented soaps, because then it takes hours before Serana can smell her underneath it. She could tell her that she’s never been in love before, and she’s a little bit terrified of just how all-encompassing that feeling is. She could tell her that sometimes, she cannot breathe for how much she wants her—not for her blood, but for _her_ , as Eres, and nothing more. She could tell her that she is afraid to watch her age, because she doesn’t know if she would be strong enough to survive losing her, sometime centuries from now.

Serana could tell her a lot of things, just then, but she doesn’t.

Instead, she pulls her closer, until she can kiss her. Until her warmth drowns out any doubts and fears Serana might have.

“I missed you,” is all she says to her, then, and Eres smiles against her lips.

“I couldn’t sleep without you.” Eres admits, looking down at her with a tenderness she’s still not sure she deserves.

She wants to say it, then. She _needs_ to say it. But the words lodge somewhere between her lungs and her mouth, and all she manages is an embarrassing croak of something that could not have been considered a word by even the most generous.

Still, Eres smiles at her. Her eyes shine, when she smiles. Serana only wishes she got to see it more often.

“I know,” Eres says simply. And she does know. She knows it, just as well as Serana does. Serana feels like they've both _known_ for a while, now. It is not something that needs to be spoken aloud, not something that needs a voice to exist, and yet—Serana wishes that she could. Just to tell her. Just to confirm it. Somehow, being able to say it to her makes it feel more real. Less like it’s all in her head.

Eres shifts above her, the amulet spilling from the collar of her shirt, drawing Serana’s eyes to the knot it bears. She knows what it means. What it signifies. She knows, too, of the ritual behind it—of what it meant in Skyrim, specifically.

It is not the first time she’s noticed it—she has known Eres to wear it practically since they had met, only now it has more meaning than it doesn’t. It is not even the first time that it has drawn her eye, in particular, made her wonder and daydream of things she cannot have.

It is, however, the first time that Eres catches her in the act, and the _knowing_ in her eyes is almost too much to bear. It _is_ too much to bear, and so Serana kisses her, because that is easier.

Maybe she can’t say these things, out loud, but she can _show her_. She can show her how much she means to her, show her the depth of her feelings, make her feel the same breathlessness that Serana feels when she looks at her—she could have kissed her until she forgot her name, until she the sun came up, until the world itself ended around them.

Serana comes to herself with a burning in the back of her throat, with a gnawing low in her belly that feels unfamiliar and terrifyingly pleasant—and when she does manage to drag herself away from her, she is not even sure how Eres ended up beneath her, not sure how or when or _why,_ but she is, and Eres’ eyes are darker than she has ever seen them, and the gnawing grows ever stronger for the sight of them.

Serana breathes, and all she can smell is her blood, all she can hear is the pounding of her pulse below her, all she can taste is the sweetness of her and—and this isn’t what she _meant_. This isn’t love, this is—

This is—

“Hey.” It is safer not to look at her. She can’t look at her when Eres is looking at her like _that_ and _not_ want things she shouldn’t want. Eres pulls her down, again, and Serana nearly pulls away—but Eres only draws her to lay her head upon her chest, threading a hand through her hair. “Do we need to do the extraction thing now?” She asks.

Serana inhales, and though her head is close to Eres’ neck, the urge to bite is beginning to ebb away. Perhaps it is the slowing of Eres’ heartbeat, the steady _thump-thump_ within her chest. Perhaps, instead, it might be the soothing tone of her voice, the understanding in it, the utter lack of any judgment. Perhaps it is the touch of her fingers against her scalp, lulling her into something that is not quite sleep, but close to it. Perhaps it is all of them, at once, that helps to calm the heat inside her, that helps to turn back the tide of desire in her, that calms the burning thirst at the back of her throat.

“No,” she says, barely more than a mumble against Eres’ chest. She’s starting to see why Eres likes being held, now. If she could sleep, she might have drifted off already. “I think I’m alright.” She doesn’t want to get up, even if she wasn’t.

“Are you going to be okay, tomorrow?” Eres asks, after a moment of blissful silence. It takes Serana several seconds just to process the question. She’s almost certain of it, now: Eres makes her stupid. “At the temple?”

Serana sighs. The answer is no, if she’s being honest. She doesn’t want to go into High Hrothgar any more than she would want to go into _any_ temple. But—she has to start somewhere. It may as well be here, right? It may as well be when she knows she is safe. She can’t be afraid of temples for the rest of her life, can she?

Serana opens her eyes, and she can see nothing but the Amulet of Mara resting against Eres’ collar. She does not reach to touch it, though part of her wants to.

“I’ll be fine.” She tells Eres, and she’s not sure if that’s true. But she’s going to try. She has to _try_ , at least, or she’ll never get anywhere.

Eres’ chest rises as she breathes. The amulet shifts, ever so slightly.

“Check in with me,” Eres says to her, voice soft, and Serana knows she is not referring only to the temple. “One step at a time. There’s no rush.”

Serana feels like there is, a little, if only because she herself doesn’t have the patience. “That’s a lot of steps.”

“At least seven thousand.”

Serana pulls the covers over her, up to her shoulders—Eres sleeps curled up in them, she knows, but just this once, just for today, maybe, Eres can be the one holding her. Just this once.

“We’ll get there eventually,” Eres says, and somehow, Serana believes her.

She’ll get there, eventually. And Eres will be there for her, every step of the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you guys like this chapter as much as i did. i think it might be one of my favorites. couple notes:
> 
> 1\. Vampirism & Body Temperature: I honestly did not bother to see if ES had any official lore on this. I guess you could call it pseudo-science, but I try to make vampires function in a way that at least sort of makes sense even without magic. They aren't quite "dead", and their blood does circulate, but much more slowly and at a lower temperature. Hence, they are essentially "cold-blooded", and don't produce much (or any) body heat of their own. They do however still have sensation and are able to feel cold, so it makes sense that they would enjoy warmth. It also gives me a reason to make Serana a cuddler. So there. fight me. 
> 
> 2\. Mara/the Coldharbour discussion: I mentioned it through Act 5, but there's a *lot* of the Coldharbour portion of the mod that's not in the fic. All of the things in that mod still happened, it's just that Eres herself does not remember them clearly due to the mantling. What happened, specifically, in this instance, is not particularly important, only that it is evidence that there were other followers of Divine deities within Coldharbour who believed their chosen patron had abandoned them when it had been Molag Bal's deceit that led them to their inevitable end/corruption. The point is that Eres realizes there is a chance, however small, that the Horn's rusting (and the broken whispers she once heard from it) were not Stendarr's doing, but an effect of being in Coldharbour where the Divine's power could not reach her. Eres' recollection of the event is intentionally confusing (because she herself is an unreliable narrator), so I wanted to clear it up as this concept will likely be revisited at some point in the future. This bit of dialogue obviously would make a lot more sense if you've played the mod, but again, not strictly necessary to enjoy the fic. We will get into more of it later. :) 
> 
> 3\. Lol, remember when I said this act *might* be 100k? Hahahahhahaha.......... (help me)


	9. Reprieve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter does have implications of the *effects* of sexual assault, most notably ptsd. There are no descriptions of the actual event, but please be cautious when reading if this may trigger you. This is only for the very first section of the chapter.

There are not many things in this world that can make Serana feel weak. Not weak in the manner of how she feels when Eres looks at her, sometimes, but weak in the way that she’s not sure if she can go on. The last time she had felt weak, maybe, had been the moment she had placed herself in that tomb to be sealed away, with her mother looming over her, insisting it was necessary. Serana had known that it was, then, but it had not kept her from feeling helpless, powerless—like her only manner of _fighting back_ was to hide herself away where no one might find her.

That had been nothing compared to this.

Compared to the sight of High Hrothgar looming above her in the distance, just a few hundred paces away. The climb itself had not been difficult, physically—but emotionally was another matter. Each step Serana had taken had felt harder, more impossible than the one before it. The welling of fear beneath her skin had begun before they had even taken the first step. She had crossed that bridge, and the trepidation had taken hold.

That trepidation had grown, and grown, and grown, until it had morphed and transformed, until it had darkened to anxiety, until it had swollen into the very beginnings of panic thrumming in her veins. Until her knees felt weak, until her legs seemed to rebel against her, until each step was a challenge and she feared she might just collapse where she stood. Until her breath came in shuttered gasps, until finally—

Serana is a hundred steps away, and she cannot step closer.

High Hrothgar is in front of her, and all she can see is the Temple in Coldharbour. There is a robed man in the doorway, and when she blinks she swears it is him, waiting for her, anticipating her—here for _her_ , to take her, to ruin her, to destroy her from the inside out and—

 _“Serana.”_ For a moment, she hears her mother’s voice. Sees her, looking at her with her pursed lips and scornful expression. For a moment, she hears her: _We all must make sacrifices, my daughter. Even you._ Even her. Even her. Especially her. Her mother had done it, and so should she—it is her duty, it is what expected of her, it is—

“ _Serana!_ _”_ Something snaps. She blinks. There is a hand in front of her face, a finger and thumb snapping to rouse her. The hand is not her mother’s. It is not _his_. The hand is Eres’. Eres, who looks up at her, who—who looks at Serana like she is broken. Like Serana knows that she is.

“I—” the words do not come to her. She can hardly think, let alone speak. She focuses on Eres, on her face, on her eyes—on anything that will occupy her mind. On everything. Eres is safe. Eres is—Eres is here, and she is safe, and she is not in Coldharbour and she is not a child anymore. She is not that girl, anymore.

“Go,” Eres says to her, and it is a demand, not a request. Her gaze is unflinching, hard and yet—yet there is love, there, beneath it. She is fierce because she must be. “Go back down to the inn and wait for me there.”

It takes Serana longer than it should to process it. Then, despite the tides of panic threatening to overwhelm her, her brows snap down.

“I’m staying,” she says, and somehow her voice does not quake, though she feels like it should. She feels like it might, if she looks up at the temple again. Looking at Eres is safer. Easier. “I’m not going back to the inn.”

Frustration, in Eres’ eyes, then. Frustration, and worry, and damnit—that stubborn streak of hers, too, Serana can see it all in her eyes. A hand grabs her own, closes around it, steadies it—and it is only then that Serana realizes that she is shaking, that her hands are trembling, marked only by the difference when Eres stills them with her own.

“You’re not okay.” Eres isn’t mean about it. She rarely is, about these kind of things. But she is blunt, and honest, and she has always been that. “Just go back and wait for me. You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Serana says, surprising even herself a little. She does know. She knows she doesn’t _have_ to. She knows, in a way, that she doesn’t _need_ to, either. But—she’s tired of letting this control her. Of letting _him_ control her, even now, even thousands of years later, and he still has this unbreakable hold over her and she is _tired of it_. After all Eres had been through to make him leave them both be—and she couldn’t even walk into a _temple_? How weak could she be? How silly could she be? It’s just a building.

It’s just a building.

“I know,” Serana repeats. “But—I want…” She doesn’t know what she wants. She doesn’t _want_ to go in there, necessarily.

There are things she can say that she wants: Eres, in general. Peace and quiet. Some time to relax. Maybe a nice book or two. Facing her fears and walking into a temple is not on her list of “wants”.

But—she does want to be done with it. She does want to be able to look at a temple and not quake all over. She does want to not have to leave Eres on her own, even in places like this when she knows Eres will be safe, just because of a silly fear. Just because of something that happened so long ago even she does not remember all of it. (Perhaps she could, if she tried. She does not. Ever.)

No, she does not want to go into High Hrothgar. But.

“I have to do this, or it’ll never end.”

Eres’ expression twists. She does not let go of Serana’s hands. In fact, for some time, she does not so much as move; she stares up at her, silently, her eyes searching for something Serana isn’t sure she’ll find. Serana’s not even sure what she’s _looking for._ But after a long moment, she sees it: She sees the stubborn set of Eres’ jaw relax, just slightly, the hardness in her eyes shifting to something closer to caution.

“Are you sure?”

The truth is that she is not. She doesn’t know that anyone could be sure of something like this. But she nods, all the same, and she squeezes the hands in hers, grateful for her support. If it were not for Eres, she is not sure she could ever face this.

Serana is still not sure she can face it _with her_ , but—she has to try, at least. She has to _try_.

She looks back up at the temple, and her hands tighten. Eres winces, and Serana swears under her breath. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Eres says, though Serana loosens her hold all the same. Still, Eres graces her with a quick, wry smile. “Just try not to break them. I need those.”

“I suppose they have their uses,” Serana tries at a joke with her usual dryness, but Eres’ eyebrows raise in such a way that she knows immediately the girl has taken it the wrong way. “Gutter,” she says shortly, scowling at her.

“You said it.” Eres smirks a little back at her, but the amusement in her gaze fades quickly. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Serana sighs. She does not squeeze Eres’ hands this time, though she wants to. She turns her eyes up to the dark stone of High Hrothgar rising above them and she holds herself very, very still. She looks at the spires, rising into the sky. It does not look like the temple in Coldharbour.

She looks at the robed man, standing in the doorway. She stares at him until he no longer looks like her father. Until his hood no longer morphs into familiar, pincered horns at either side of his head. Until all that she sees is a wizened old man with a long, grey beard, staring mildly back at her. Until he is just a man, and not a shadow of her past.

She takes a breath. Her hands still tremble. Her knees still feel weak. There is a tightness in her chest that feels like a vice, like a clamp around her lungs that squeezes all the air out of them, that keeps her from breathing. There is a prickling at the back of her neck, a coldness at the base of her spine—there is all of it, there, just as before, but now she sees High Hrothgar, and not Coldharbour. She sees a Greybeard, and not Harkon, not Molag Bal, not any of them. Just an old monk. In an old temple. In _Skyrim,_ not Oblivion.

She is fine. She will be fine. She can do this.

“I’m sure.” She says. She is no more sure of this than she would be if Eres had asked her to fly, but it is all that she can say. Eres nods, though she keeps one of Serana’s hand in hers all the same. The warmth of her touch helps to drown out the shadows that haunt her mind. She focuses on it, instead of the steps.

She watches her feet. One foot in front of the other. She braces one hand on the dark stone, dusted with snow. The cold barely even registers—she focuses her mind instead on the warmth of Eres’ hand in her own. She looks at their feet as they climb the stairs - Eres, who moves with the grace of a dancer, who steps on the balls of her feet first rather than the heel, whose light step has always been near-silent. Eres, who matches her step for step, who does not comment on how slowly she makes her way up the stairs, or the way her knees almost buckle, or the way she trembles and shakes or—or any of it.

Eres is there. She is support. She is strength. She is a pillar. She is strong where Serana is weak, as Serana had once been for her. Strange, how seamlessly they shift, how easily they adapt to the needs of the other—was _this_ what love was?

“Dragonborn.” Serana flinches. Something cracks under her left hand. When she looks down, there is stone, crumbled around her fingers. Eres does not say anything. When Serana looks up, the man in the hooded robe does not so much as blink, utterly unbothered by the destruction of temple architecture. “You have brought a guest.” He says, his tone mild and unassuming, carefully measured.

He looks Serana in the eyes, and it is then she realizes she had forgotten the glamor entirely. He says nothing of it. He merely turns his gaze upon Eres beside her.

“This is Serana.” Eres says, and that is all the introduction she needs. “I have the Horn.”

“I see.” The man nods. “Come,” he tells them—both of them, with a look at Serana, too. “Come inside. Out of the cold. A storm is coming.”

Serana does not look up to verify that. She must focus on moving forward. She is at the top of the stairs.

If she’s honest—she hadn’t expected to make it even this far. She is at the top of the stairs, and the doors are just a few steps away, and there is the inside of the temple, just over the monk’s shoulder—she can see the dark stone masonry of its interior, the warm light of lit braziers—and she is frozen.

She is frozen, and she cannot make herself move.

The monk pauses near the door, glancing to Eres rather than Serana herself. “Would you like some assistance?” He asks, quietly. “Your friend seems rather…”

“It’s probably better if you don’t.” Eres replies, equally quiet. “She has a phobia of temples. I don’t think you’re helping.”

He is not. Eres is smart like that. She knows.

“Very well.” The man nods. “Do you remember the rooms you were given the last time you were here?” Eres nods, this time. “They remain open for your use. Perhaps you might take your friend there to…relax,” he says, diplomatically.

Eres shifts on her feet. “Can you make the others—scarce?” She says, and Serana is so grateful for her she might have kissed her right in front of him if she could move at all. “At least from that wing. I think it might be easier for her, that way.”

The man takes a moment, humming to himself. But then he nods, again. “Yes,” he says. “I believe I can arrange this.” He looks at Serana, then, and with a level of kindness she had not expected from him, says, “I shall make sure the others know to leave you be. I will instruct them to give you a wide berth, should you choose to explore the monastery. In the time being, Dragonborn—” he looks at Eres again, “there is a private wing we have not opened for some time. Once you are settled, come to me. It is time we formally recognized you as Dragonborn—then, High Hrothgar will be open to you.”

“Including this private wing?” Eres asks.

“Yes.” The man nods. “Reserved for the Dragonborn as it is, only you are qualified to live within it, should you choose. But—perhaps it will bring some comfort to your companion to know that she will remain unbothered within its walls.” The man asks no more questions of them, and says nothing else. He merely turns, and leaves them to their own.

“Who is he?” Serana asks, if only to occupy her mind with something else. Perhaps, if she can focus on Eres’ voice rather than the anxiety crawling beneath her skin…

“Arngeir,” Eres tells her. “He’s the only one of them who speaks.” When Serana looks at her, Eres shrugs. “I suppose the others must have taken a vow of silence.”

“Aren’t they supposed to Shout…?” Serana wonders. Eres takes a step forward. She follows, without thought, and the door inches closer. She breathes. In. Out. She is fine. She will be fine. Eres is here with her.

“I’ve only heard them whisper,” Eres admits. “And only then when they were teaching me a new word.”

Another step. Eres tells her of the first time she had come to High Hrothgar, of what they had taught her. Of how she had refused their request to retrieve the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, when they had first asked her to. She tells Serana of her regrets—of her regret that she did not pursue her role as Dragonborn sooner. Perhaps if she had, Eres explains quietly, Fellburg would not have fallen the way it had. Perhaps if she had, Fellburg might still be intact.

“You can’t think like that,” Serana tells her. “In should haves, in could have beens—in what ifs,” she shakes her head. She tries not to notice that they have passed the edge of the door, now, and will be inside soon. She tries, but she cannot stop her eyes from tracing its outline, from following the patterns engraved upon its surface. “You can drive yourself mad, that way.”

“Some people might say I’m already mad,” Eres shrugs lightly. When Serana glares at her, she sends her a quick, wry smile. “I did look at the Eye, after all.”

“That’s another thing you shouldn’t think about.”

Eres isn’t crazy. Whatever the Eye had been, clearly it had not been as effective as she had been told. Eres is not _insane_ —and even what little signs of madness she did have could only have been caused by her experience in Coldharbour. With the Dragon Breaks. With Molag Bal.

The door closes behind them. The brazier at the far wall gutters, flickering. Light and shadow dance upon the walls. Shadows that, for a moment, look too much like people. Like her father’s people. Like _his_ people. Serana’s hand tightens around Eres’ once more, gripping so tightly that Serana must force herself to release her, must force her fingers to loosen for fear of hurting her.

Serana mutters an apology for the second time. Eres tells her it’s fine, for a second time. It will not be the last time, Serana fears.

It gets easier. Not with each step, not so quickly, but—eventually, the shadows just look like shadows. The light from the braziers is warm, almost cozy, rather than ominous. The stone of High Hrothgar is white and grey and not the barren sandstone of Coldharbour. Arngeir has made what other monks may have been there scarce enough that Serana does not see even one of them as they make their way further inside. Slowly. Ever so slowly. Step by step. Bit by bit. Meter by agonizing meter.

By the time they reach the stairs at the other end of the entrance hall, her knees don’t feel quite as weak. Her legs feel like they belong to her again, rather than something she controls from a great distance. There is still that anxiety crawling beneath her skin, just at the very edges of her conscious, but it is—it is pulling back. It is receding, resting, lying dormant, lying in wait—it is waiting, Serana thinks, for something that might justify it.

Nothing does.

They climb the stairs. They turn a corner. They enter a room. Again the door closes behind them. This one has a lock. There is a bed in this room, small and plain and with a single fur blanket laid atop it. In one corner there is a small bookshelf. There are used slates sitting upon it, the stakes left haphazardly beside it. The writing on them is reminiscent of that which Serana had seen all that time ago in the Forgotten Vale, upon the Word Wall they had once camped beside—right after Eres had first learned of her nature as Dragonborn. There is a chair, and a small table, and on top of that table there is a pair of folded robes not unlike those the hooded man had worn.

There is nothing else in the room. Nothing but herself, and the walls, and the bed and the shelf and the table and Eres. And a candle, a collection of candles, candles that Eres lights to bathe the small room in warm, soft light. The shadows on the wall flicker, but they do not look like people. They are only shadows. Hers, and Eres’. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Serana breathes. In. Out. Eres leads her to the chair. Serana sits, pressing herself against the wall in the corner where no one might be able to surprise her. Eres is in front of her, standing between her legs, pulling her in before Serana can even think to ask for it.

Eres smells like Eres. She is a comfort. She is home. Serana allows Eres to pull her into an embrace, allows herself to hug her about the waist and accept what is offered to her—she cannot pretend she doesn’t need it. If it were up to her, she might never let her go. Not here. Not now.

Eres holds her until she stops trembling. Until she is able to breathe without the sound shuddering in her chest. Until her grip on Eres loosens, until she does not seem so desperate for comfort. Until she seems halfway okay again. A hand runs through her hair, fingers soft against her scalp. It is the first time she shivers for a reason that is not fear in what feels like a lifetime.

“Are you okay?” Eres asks her, voice soft. Serana does not raise her eyes to look at her, but she doesn’t need to. She can hear the love in her voice, the care, the unwavering support, the understanding. It is more than she could have ever asked for. Perhaps more than she could ever earn in any lifetime, let alone this one. “Do you want to lay down?”

In. Out. “Don’t you need to meet with Arngeir?” Serana does look up, then, to see Eres frowning down at her.

“I’m not going to leave you like this. Arngeir can wait a while.”

“It’s…” It’s not _fine_ , really, but. “I can manage,” she amends. “I’ll… I’ll be okay, for a while. I’ll just,” Serana leans back in the seat. She squeezes the arm of the chair in her hands. The wood is sturdy enough, but she might crack it if she isn’t careful. “I’ll stay here, until you get back.” Eres’ frown only deepens. “I’ll be _fine_.”

Eres looks like she doubts that. Serana can’t even say she blames her—but what is she supposed to do? Ask Eres to stay with her, like some kind of scared child? She’s _thousands_ of years old, not a toddler. She can handle being alone in a room for an hour or so. Even if it is in a temple. Even if the anxiety does make her want to jump out the nearest window—if there was one, that is. The room they’re in has nothing but the closed door. The closed door that has a lock. There are no other entrances.

She will be fine, as long as she can lock the door and press herself against a wall and wait. Wait for Eres to return.

“I don’t have to go now,” is what Eres says, and she does not step away from her.

“No, you do.” Serana argues. “He said there’s a private wing, didn’t he?” Perhaps it’s a bit too leading of her to say but, “I might feel… safer, if we were by ourselves.”

Eres frown deepens. She only looks more conflicted, rather than less. “I don’t know how long this will take.” That, Serana must admit, does bother her. She doesn’t know how long Eres will be gone. How long she will be alone. But—but this is a test. She can manage this. And if it gets too bad, well.

“I can always leave if it gets to be too much.” Serana tells her, though she knows that she will not. She can be just as stubborn as Eres is, and that is no secret to either of them. But the option _is_ there, if she needs to take it. The Greybeards are old men wandering around in heavy robes. She can outrun them, probably even without her vampiric speed. She is not in danger here. She simply has to keep reminding herself of that. “Or wait outside, or something. Just go, Eres. I’ll be alright.”

Eres does not want to go. Serana can see that, plain on her face. But she leans down all the same, presses her lips to the top of Serana’s head—and just for a moment, the touch of her, the scent of her, the warmth of her—drives away the fear. Just for a time. Just for now.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Eres takes her hands, then, and deposits the room key into them. “Keep the door locked. No one can come in unless you ask them to. Not even me.”

Serana knows how a locked door works. Not that she would ever keep Eres out. It does not change the fact that hearing this said aloud still brings her some small amount of comfort. She is in control here. What happens here is up to _her_ , and no one else, and Eres only means to remind her of that. All the time, she wonders how Eres can know that. How she can know the right words to say, at just the right time, when even Serana herself does not.

Eres leaves - reluctantly, she thinks, but she does leave all the same - and Serana is alone.

* * *

When Eres finds Arngeir at last, he is kneeling in prayer, as he often is. He rises before she speaks a single word to him, having long awaited her arrival. When he stands, he folds his hands within the sleeves of his robes, and looks upon her with an expression that is far more patient and understanding than she had expected it to be. She expects him to ask after Serana, about the vampire she has brought into their holy monastery - but he does not.

“So,” he says to her, calmly. “You have retrieved the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller after all.” He does not reach to gain it from her, only he allows the smallest of smiles upon his lips. “Well done. You have passed all the trials expected of you.”

Eres doesn’t know quite how to feel. She had expected some manner of questioning, some level of curiosity, at least. That he does not mention Serana at all, despite his efforts to help the woman feel more comfortable in what way he could, somehow unsettles her.

“Are you not going to ask about her?”

“For what purpose?” He asks, raising his brows. “She is of no concern to us, Dragonborn. We must trust your judgment, in all things.” Eres searches for some manner of scorn in that statement, but somehow finds none at all. Arngeir says this as if it is fact, as if it is yet another duty of being Greybeard, and nothing more.

“But,” he says then, and Eres braces herself for whatever he might say next. Arngeir’s expression sobers. “It is plain to me that what your companion requires is aid, not an interrogation. Whatever her purpose here—whatever it is that has affected her so - it is not our place to question such things. We are here to instruct you in the Way of the Voice, and nothing more.”

Eres opens her mouth, and yet finds that she has nothing to say. She had not expected such empathy from him. Had she misjudged him, before?

“Come with me,” Arngeir says then. “It is time for us to recognize you formally as Dragonborn.”

Arngeir leads her to the entrance hall once more, where the other monks have already gathered for their arrival. Not for the first time, Eres wonders if they might have some other method of communication she is not aware of. They always seem to know just where to be at just the right time, in a manner that cannot possibly be coincidence.

“You are ready to learn the final word of _Unrelenting Force_ ,” Arngeir continues, even as he directs her to kneel at the middle of the semi-circle he and the other Greybeards have formed around her. “ _Dah_ , which means - _push_. Master Wulfgar will gift you with his understanding of the word.”

Eres has never been able to tell the others apart - none of them speak, and with the hoods pulled so low over their faces, she has little idea of what any of them look like. The one just ahead of her and to the right spreads his arms, and whispers: _“Dah.”_ She supposes he must be Wulgar. Not that she would know any better.

As with every time before now that they had taught her a word, it seems as though the ground just in front of her buckles, crumpling under an invisible pressure to form deep divots in the ancient stone. The drags of three claws here, another two there with a small dot between them. She can read it as well as she can read any language she had ever learned, as well as though it might have been written in her native tongue. She supposes perhaps it _is_ her native tongue, in a manner of speaking.

“With all three words together,” Arngeir continues, “this Shout is much more powerful. Use it wisely.” He warns. He clasps his hands in front of him. “You have completed your training, Dragonborn. We would Speak to you.”

 _Aren_ _’t you already?_ Eres almost asks, but she knows that is not the point. 

“Stand between us, and prepare yourself. Few can withstand the unbridled Voice of the Greybeards. But you are ready, now. As we knew you would one day be.”

It feels as though the very air buckles beneath the force of their combined voices—and yet, strangely, it does not hurt. It feels like a heaviness, settling over her, a pressure that wraps around her entire body and pushes inward, but it is not painful. But it is true that she can only just hear the whispers they speak, can only make out one word out of every few - even gifted with the knowledge of the Dovah language as she is, much of it passes well over her head. By the time it is over, and the pressure fades, Eres is not even sure what has happened.

“ _Dovahkiin_.” Arngeir approaches her once more. Already, the other monks have begun to disperse. Within her hands, Arngeir places a singular key. “You have tasted the Voice of the Greybeards, and passed through unscathed. High Hrothgar is open to you. This key will open the door to the Eastern wing, just past the rooms we have lent you previously. None shall enter this wing without your permission. Perhaps it may bring your friend some comfort.”

“The ceremony,” she starts, “what was it all for? I couldn’t understand most of it.”

“Ah,” Arngeir nods. “We spoke the traditional words of greeting to a Dragonborn who has accepted our guidance.” There is something that looks like a spark of mirth in his eyes, of barely-veiled amusement. She has the feeling he is being just a tad sarcastic, there, but she decides not to press him on it. “The same words were used to greet the young Talos, when he came to High Hrothgar, before he became the Emperor Tiber Septim.”

“What was it that you actually said?”

“Sometimes I forget you are not versed in the dragon tongue as we are,” Arngeir admits. Eres restrains herself from scowling - she could have understood them, she is sure, if they had spoken clearly. But with all of their voices blending together the way it had, she had struggled to parse any single word out of the cacophony. “This is a rough translation.”

_“Long has the Stormcrown languished, with no worthy brow to sit upon. By our breath, we bestow it now to you, in the name of Kyne, in the name of Shor, and in the name of Atmora of Old. You are Ysmir now, Dragon of the North. Hearken to it.”_

Eres hears the name _Shor_ , and little else. And Ysmir—had he not also been an aspect of Shezarr? All the time, now, she is wondering just how much of her destiny is preordained.

“You have learned much already, Dragonborn,” Arngeir tells her. “But be careful. Growing your gift too quickly could be dangerous. However,” he says, “if you wish to learn more of the dragon tongue - and the power you can find within it… There are many Words of Power in Skyrim, carved in the Dragon tongue. Even from here, we can feel the _Thu_ _’um_ resonate from them. Finding these lost Words would be a sufficient test, to temper your abilities with experience. We have felt the whisper of a Word—give me your map and I can show you where its echo might be found.”

Eres does not know if she will seek this out so quickly - she still has to meet up with Esbern and Delphine in Riverwood, and find some way to defeat Alduin. Or, at least, find out how he had been defeated previously in the past. But she does allow Arngeir to mark the location on her map all the same - perhaps, if she passes near to this area sometime in the future, she will seek it out for what insights it may offer her.

“It is a privilege,” Arngeir says solemnly, “to guide you towards mastery of your Voice.”

Eres puts the map away. She cannot help the guilt that roils in her gut. “Even after I went against you before? Even after…” what happened to Fellburg, she does not say, because Fellburg would mean little to the Greybeards, so removed from the world high up on their mountain.

“You are a child, Dragonborn,” Arngeir says, surprisingly mild. There is no scorn she can hear in his voice. He is merely stating a fact. “And, sometimes, we forget what being a child was like for _us_ , once upon a time. It is easy to forget, too,” he says, “that those of your kind age so much more slowly than we do. There are times when even we must learn to temper our expectations. Learn to reserve our judgment, for those who deserve it. I, too, was not at my best when last we met. I admit I had… _preconceptions_ ,” he says diplomatically, “of what a Dragonborn may look and act like, should one ever present themselves to us. You were not what we expected - and so, I fear, we did not treat you as we should have. Perhaps if we had met you with open arms and open minds, you would not have been so obstinate. I cannot blame you for the way you responded to us, when it is we who are at fault, in the end.”

She gapes at him. Of all the things she had expected Arngeir to say, this had been the absolute furthest from it.

“On behalf of the Greybeards, I apologize for the way we received you at first.” Arngeir says, and Eres must force herself to close her mouth. “We are no more infallible than any other mortal, it seems. Perhaps we needed you to remind us of that. Whatever the case,” Arngeir shrugs almost helplessly, “that is behind us now. Now, you must craft your own destiny as Dragonborn. We can only set you on the path - but in the end, it is you who must follow it, and in the way only you know how. We are guides, teachers—not puppeteers. I hope, from now on, you and I can remain on the same page.”

“I…” She doesn’t actually know how to respond to that. She doesn’t think she’s ever had an adult apologize to her before. “Sure,” she says, at last, for lack of anything else to say. “Okay…?”

Arngeir smiles. “Okay,” he says, and it feels a bit mocking, but in a kind way - like he is merely amused by how taken aback she is. “As I said, the East wing is open to you now. Perhaps you and your companion might take the rest of the night to relax, before the world calls upon you once more. High Hrothgar is as open to her, and any of your companions, as it is to you. If you have need of anything, you need only ask.”

Eres nods mutely, unable to feel anything but a little blindsided. Perhaps she had been too quick to judge Arngeir, just as he had been too quick to judge her. She is not sure how she feels about it.

But, more importantly, his little ceremony had not taken nearly as long as she expected it would. Which means she has not left Serana alone for hours, as she feared she might, and now she can return to her, make sure she’s truly as fine as she claimed she would be. With the sun setting, descending from High Hrothgar back to Ivarstead may be too dangerous, but perhaps taking Serana to the eastern wing would help to alleviate at least some of her discomfort.

Eres returns to the room with all due haste, and knocks upon the door. She left the key with Serana for a reason - she had wanted Serana to be secure in the knowledge that no one would be able to enter her space without her express permission. Even if that someone is Eres herself. Even if it bothers her to know she has no way of entering the room without Serana opening the door for her. What if something’s happened, in the time she was gone? What if Serana is _unable_ to let her in, and Eres’ insistence on showing her she had as much privacy she liked ended up getting her hurt in the end? What if she had been too overbearing? What if—

 _“Eres?”_ Serana’s voice, on the other side of the door.

“It’s me,” Eres answers. Hearing her makes her worries diminish, however slightly. She will feel better once she is able to see her, to get the measure of her face to face. Serana is as good at hiding her emotions as Eres is, half the time. “May I come in?”

There is silence, for a moment. Then, the door swings open to reveal her, looking down at her with some amount of bemusement. “It’s _your_ room.”

“I know.” That doesn’t change what she’d asked. That doesn’t change the fact she’d wanted Serana to admit her in on her own. “I have the key to the private wing, if you’d like to come. I’ve no idea what’s in there, though.”

Serana looks—marginally better, if only just. Not by much. She still looks uncomfortable, uncertain about leaving the room she had remained in. Perhaps in the time that Eres had left her, she had almost become accustomed to it, in some way, and now the thought of leaving it makes her feel unsafe all over again.

“No one will bother us there,” Eres promises her. “We can stay the night and leave as soon as the sun comes up. Or,” she adds, “you could—go back down to Ivarstead. It would be dangerous for me to try, given the ice. Unless you carry me down with you, I suppose…” Eres trails off, not entirely happy with that idea - it sounds like a recipe for disaster, climbing down a mountain in the pitch dark, and that was not even including her own dislike for being carted around like an invalid. It would be a quick journey, perhaps, with Serana’s speed, but it might still be dangerous all the same. But if it meant that Serana would be more comfortable, then…

“No.” Serana says suddenly, shaking her head. “It’s—it’s fine. We’ll just… go.” Eres raises her brows. “To the wing.” Serana, cautiously, takes a single step forward. She stands in the doorway, and peers from one end of the hall to the other. “The others…?”

“Hiding, I imagine,” Eres says, then realizes that doesn’t sound half as assuring as she’d meant it to. “I mean, making themselves scarce. They’re probably on the other side somewhere, praying. That’s pretty much all they do here all day. They won’t bother us.”

“If you say so.” Serana still looks doubtful, uneasy. But she does come, following closely alongside her, matching her step for step.

Eres is glad the east wing isn’t so far, and she has never found the sound of doors closing behind them more comforting than they were in that moment. Just for added security, Eres even lowers the bar across the doors, though Serana does not ask her to do so.

“A little dusty,” Serana says, forcibly casual.

When Eres looks at her, the woman has moved barely a meter away from her, eying the long hall that the wing opens into. There are stairs just to Eres’ right hand side, just a few steps beyond the shelf Serana has dragged a finger over, leaving a too-clean stripe through the dust that mars its surface.

“I don’t think anyone has been here in decades.” Eres isn’t sure of the last Dragonborn they had hosted here before her. Who had it been? Who might have lived within these walls before herself? She really needs to actually look up the history of Dragonborn at some point. “And no one will be, except for us.”

Serana makes a point of taking a deep breath. She takes another step forward, peers around the corner just above the stairs. “There’s a room, here. And— _ugh_ ,” she grimaces, leaning back. “I hope there’s another room somewhere.”

Eres, frowning, moves forward. “What’s wrong with it?” She asks - but that is before she sees it. The bed is against one wall, and looks perfectly usable, if a bit old-fashioned. On the wall exactly opposite, however, there is a statue of Talos - facing the bed. Looking down at it. “Oh.”

“I don’t know how comfortable I’d be with him watching us.”

Eres might have made a joke about that, in other circumstances. She might have said something about - well, what is Talos going to see? They don’t _do anything_ at night, aside from holding each other. She’s sure that Talos, or any god, wouldn’t particularly mind baring witness to something so innocent.

But given Serana’s already existing discomfort, and even Eres’ own—joke though she may, it _is_ a bit unsettling—she does not say it aloud.

“I’m sure there’s another room somewhere. Minus the statue.”

“Do you think Talos slept in there?” Serana asks. She is forcing it, maybe, but Eres gets the feeling that she needs to, and so she does not press it. “With his own statue looking down at him? How self-obsessed can you get?”

“I’d hope not,” Eres replies, as lightly as she is able, working to match Serana in tone and ease—if only to help her, in any way that she can. “I don’t know what’s weirder - Talos having a statue of himself, or him leaving a statue behind for the people that came here after him.”

“Both equally creepy.”

Serana is well enough to bathe on her own, at least, though Eres had wondered. Eres had gone first, made her bath quick and as expedient as she possibly could, despite how much she’d have liked to soak in there for some time. The bathroom in this wing is as large as the second bedroom they had found - thankfully without the statue of Talos overlooking the bed - and Eres had been more than tempted to hibernate beneath its steaming waters, allowing the heat to soak through the tension in her muscles. But Serana needed her, and the longer Eres spent away from her, the more she felt as though she was leaving Serana to fend for her own in a place she did not feel safe.

So Eres had hurried, and when she had returned, Serana had left to do the same, albeit more hesitantly than she might have any other time.

In her absence, Eres finds herself upon the bed, turning the extractor over in her hands. She is _almost_ sure she knows how it works. There is the cylindrical casing, and on its exterior there is a little divot that she can imagine a vial or the thin neck of a potion bottle may fit into. In the same bag that had housed the extractor, there are several - not many, but five or six small little vials, each with their own stoppers. Aside from them, there is only one other thing within the satchel, and that is a magicked velvet pouch with a warming spell upon it - she can only imagine it functions to keep the blood as fresh as could be possible without actual circulation within a mortal body.

Eres can imagine how it might work - she puts her arm within the opening, and… Well, she’s not exactly sure of the mechanics after that. She imagines there must be something that punctures the skin within the cylinder, but she can hardly tell what it might be without actually testing it for herself.

If anyone were to ask her, Eres would say she _did_ debate it, for a time. She did hold it in her hands and wonder if using it now was the best idea. But she had reasoned with herself that, in a place where Serana cannot hunt, in a place where she already feels unsafe—perhaps Eres can give her something that would settle her mind a bit more.

And, perhaps, she is simply a little curious. Perhaps she has always been just a little bit too curious for her own good.

Eres sticks her arm inside the capsule, and nothing happens. She is not sure how to make it work. There are buttons and mechanisms along the outside of it, but she has no idea what any of them might do and—ah. That one makes it tighten. She presses one, and the opening closest to her upper arm tightens, clamping down around it, and tightening further. It tightens just enough to be painful, and in the moment that she manages to recover from the surprise of it, she realizes it must function as a tourniquet.

Well, she thinks. The vampires are nothing if not thorough, it seems.

Eres presses the fingers of her free hand against the edges of the two buttons she has not pressed. Neither of them have any obvious indication of what they might be used for. She imagines one of them must begin the extraction, but what of the other? And is she even sure she has it on correctly? And how does she make it _release her_?

“Eres, what—”

Eres jumps, startled by Serana’s sudden appearance in the doorway, and her finger presses just a little too hard against one of the buttons she had been inspecting so carefully. Something clicks, and Eres hisses as something pierces the skin just at the bend of her elbow. “Ow.”

Serana is across the room before she blinks. One moment, the woman is in the doorway, puzzled, and the next, she is on the bed beside her, shoving a vial into the little divot on the extractor before her blood manages to spill all over the fur blankets she’s sitting on.

“Idiot,” Serana mutters, without much bite. “What made you think this was a good idea to use this without me here?”

Eres looks at her. Serana’s eyes seem a little brighter than usual, but not unfocused. She is as alert and _herself_ as she has ever been, not driven by bloodlust or, well, any other kind of lust. She seems mildly concerned, if anything, perhaps a bit exasperated—but, Eres notices, she does not look fearful. Her concern for Eres seems to have outweighed her concern for herself, at least in the moment.

“I actually didn’t mean to use it.” Eres watches all the same, mildly fascinated, as Serana pulls her arm into her lap and goes through the motions with the ease of someone who has done this many, many times before. When the first vial fills, Serana shifts some kind of notch upon the extractor, removes the first vial and stoppers it, and replaces it with a new one before a single drop of her blood manages to spill anywhere else. Once it is replaced, she pushes the little notch back in place, and the new vial begins to fill as quickly as the last one.

Is it odd, that she finds the sight of it a little fascinating? Perhaps she’s more morbid than she thinks. Or, perhaps she’s spent too much time with a vampire, that she finds the sight of her own blood to be so curious.

“I was just looking at it.”

Serana's expression turns skeptical. “With your arm inside it?” 

“Okay,” Eres answers, “maybe I was going to use it. But I didn’t mean to right then. You surprised me.”

“ _Me_?” Serana replaces the second vial with another. This time, she hesitates when she grabs the next, as if she wonders if she should. Eres nudges her with her foot until she moves.

“You might as well use all of them.” Serana favors her with as dry a look as she can muster. She puts the new vial in almost pointedly, snapping the port back open once more. “If I’m already bleeding, anyways…” Eres trails off. She hadn’t thought this through, she admits. What happens when the vials are filled? They’re filling a _lot_ more quickly than she had thought they would. Not that it is an exorbitant amount of blood - there is barely more than a drink or two in each of the vials Serana holds, but it is still enough that it is worrisome for her, anyways. She supposes she could risk restoration, but she’s still not quite gotten a hold of using magic in the way Auria has taught her to, and she’s not keen on seeing the effects of doing so when she’s already suffering from blood loss, given her last experience.

The third fills in the blink of an eye. And then the fourth, and the fifth. There is one vial remaining, but when the fifth fills and Serana stoppers it, she does not pull out the sixth. Instead, she tucks all of the little vials into the velvet pouch, and sets about disengaging the extractor from Eres’ arm.

“I heard a rumor vampires could stop bleeding, somehow…” Eres muses, as Serana pulls at a button on the outside. It disengages, and the clamp releases her upper arm. Feeling rushes back into her lower arm and hand, though weakly. She flexes her fingers.

“That’s a myth,” Serana replies absently. She taps a finger against the metal. Tap, tap, tap, in time with seconds on a clock. After twenty little taps, she pulls it away. Eres does not even feel the needle or whatever had punctured her skin leave her - only sees the little drop of blood that wells just at the junction of her elbow, right near the center. With a flick of her hand, Eres’ small satchel of first aid supplies jumps into Serana’s lap from across the room. From it, she pulls a little vial of alcohol, bandages, and a tiny tin of disinfectant that Eres cannot even remember having used before now. “There’s an—anticoagulant,” she says, “in the bite, I suppose you could say. If anything, you would just bleed more, and for longer.”

Good to know. She’ll keep that in mind. But if that’s the case, how do vampires get the bleeding to stop, if they didn’t want to drain their victims? She asks her as much, and Serana favors her with a wry look.

“Unsurprisingly, that’s usually not something a lot of vampires worry about. But,” she says, shrugging, “same way you get anything else to stop bleeding. Pressure and time. Maybe a potion or two to help with the replenishment.” Serana pauses, midway through wrapping a bandage around her arm, then, a strange look crossing her face. “I didn’t even think of that.”

Eres raises a brow. “Think of what, exactly?” Actually, she is starting to feel a bit dizzy, now. Maybe giving blood hadn’t been the brightest idea at the peak of one of the tallest mountains in Skyrim. Her head is starting to swim a little.

“There are potions you can make to help speed up the recovery process.” Serana says. “Usually for actual injuries, of course, but,” she shrugs again. “It should work with you, I think.”

Eres smirks, despite herself. “So you can feed from me more often, I take it?” Serana doesn’t seem to find the concept as amusing as she does, sending her nothing more than a short, unimpressed look as she continues her work. “We should look into those.”

“I don’t plan on feeding from you _that_ often.”

Eres almost asks it. She almost asks, _but what about when we—_ and she stops herself before she even finishes thinking it. They are a long way from there, and High Hrothgar certainly isn’t the place to joke about such a thing. Not when Serana is already on edge enough as it is. She can always bring it up later, when it’s more relevant. When it’s actually something she needs to be concerned about. Right now, she has more important things to worry about.

Like getting to Riverwood, and meeting up with Esbern and Delphine. And whatever else might come after that.

“Are you not going to have some?”

“No.” Serana says shortly. “I’m not hungry.”

Eres raises a brow. “Saving it for a rainy day?”

“Ha, ha,” Serana drawls. “I’m feeling a little nauseous, actually.”

“Oh.” Eres should have guessed as much. Serana hasn’t been feeling well all day, and here she is, joking about it. “Sorry. Probably could have chosen a better time to experiment with this thing.”

“Probably.” Still, Serana doesn’t seem particularly upset by it - just sort of fondly exasperated, in her own way. “You’ve never been one to sit on your hands, though. Can’t say I’m too surprised.” At last, the bandage is in place, and Serana tosses the satchel and all its contents carelessly to the floor beside the bed. She is much more careful with the bag containing the extractor and the velvet pouch filled with the vials of Eres’ blood, she notices. 

Eres doesn’t necessarily want to bring it up again, but she has to ask. “How are you feeling?”

Serana sighs. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. Slightly better now.” As if to prove it, she holds out one of her hands, looking down at it. Eres looks, too, and the hand no longer trembles. It is as steady as it has ever been. But, she knows that is not a guarantee for Serana’s current mood. “Better than I was, at least.”

That’s not the answer Eres had hoped for, perhaps, but it is better than she expected. “Will you be alright, tonight?”

“You’ll be here.” Serana says simply, as if that is enough of an answer on its own. When Eres looks at her questioningly, Serana reaches for her, pulls her into an embrace, and hugs her close.

“You make it better,” Serana whispers into her ear. “I couldn’t have done this without you. You make everything better.”

* * *

The next morning, when they step outside of the temple’s doors once more and into the blistering wind of the mountain peaks, Serana spreads her arms wide and breathes as deeply as though she has just emerged from an eternity underwater. They are still on the steps, just outside the temple, and already Serana looks so much better, so much freer than she had inside its halls.

“Do you go to seek out the _Thu_ _’um_ , now, Dragonborn?” Arngeir asks of Eres, shuffling a few steps out of the temple, himself. He does not approach Serana, and in fact, takes care to ensure that he keeps a constant distance between the two of them. Eres may have had her disagreements with him the first time she had come here, but if there is one thing she will be grateful for, it would be his respect for Serana, vampire or no.

“Well,” Eres starts, and she feels no need to lie. “I have to meet with Delphine and Esbern. Delphine seems to think Esbern might know something about the return of the dragons, and what we might do to stop it.”

She watches, hiding a smile, as Serana hops lightly down the steps to the ground below, all too thrilled to be out in open air. She is almost childlike, in her thrill to be free of it, and Eres cannot even fault her for it. Eres had awakened more than once in the night to find Serana tense beside her, unable to drift into the light doze she often did when within the confines of the temple as they were. Eres too, is glad to be free of it, if only because it means that Serana will feel more at peace.

Arngeir, beside her, hums low under his breath. Eres is not surprised to see the caution in his expression. She remembers his distrust of the Blades from the last time she had been here.

“Careful, Dragonborn,” Arngeir intones solemnly. “There are many who may wish to take advantage of your position. Of the power you wield. Be wary of those you invite into your inner circle. Keep your eyes and ears open at all times, and stay true always to the Way of the Voice.”

Eres has hardly a clue of what _that_ means, in particular. Even the first time she had been here, they had been incredibly vague on just what the _Way of the Voice_ actually was, outside of learning new words and mastering her _Thu_ _’um_.

“What is it, anyways?” She asks him. She keeps an eye on Serana, but the woman has only taken to looking out over the edge of a cliff just nearby, mere paces from the temple steps. Eres would not be caught dead standing so close to such a sheer drop, but Serana did not have the fear of mortality to worry for, and even Eres must admit that the view of the rising sun from the peak of High Hrothgar is not one that can be overestimated. “Between you and the Blades. Neither of you seem to like each other very much.”

“Hmmm…” Arngeir folds his hands into his robes, turning his gaze to the rising sun, as well. “We have had our disagreements, in the past,” is all he says to that. “Perhaps, should the opportunity arise, I will teach you more of our history, when next you return here.”

If Eres is honest, she does not see that happening again any time soon. She doubts that she will have need to return here again, once she meets with Esbern and Delphine. For all she knows, she might never return here until after she has fulfilled the very prophecy that the Greybeards had waited so long for.

“We’ll see,” is all she says to him, though. “Until next time, Master Arngeir.” It is the first time she has called him as such, and Arngeir does not miss it.

“Master?” he asks, chuckling. “Soon, with your innate ability - it may be I who calls _you_ Master.”

Eres very much doubts that. She nearly turns to leave, but there is one last question she needs an answer to.

“…Why don’t you have a problem with Serana?”

Arngeir looks at her, raises his brows mildly. “Should I?” He asks.

“Well, no,” and now she feels a bit stupid for asking, but. “But she’s a vampire. I thought…” She frowns. “I thought you’d have a problem with that.”

“This is a place of worship,” Arngeir says, softly so as not to be overheard even by Serana’s ears. “Before it is the home of the Dragonborn, it is also a monastery. In times past, when High Hrothgar saw far more pilgrims than we do now—there was once a time even our doors remained open for those who had need of respite.” The wisdom, the knowing in his eyes near floors her. “Of refuge,” he says quietly. “We are not unwise to the ways of the world beyond our doors, young one. We, as much as any other, know of the origin of her kind. We also know,” he adds, “the look of a woman who has been wronged, harmed. We know the face of a woman who bears a pain not a single one of us here may ever understand. It was not so long ago that she would not even be the only woman within our walls, seeking refuge in the shelter we offer.”

Eres swallows. “You knew.” She says, and her voice feels hollow in her throat.

Arngeir nods, his expression tinged with remorse for a woman he does not know. “Why did you think I made sure we all kept our distance? Why did you think I allowed you access to the very wing Talos himself once occupied?”

“I—I thought that was for the Dragonborn.”

Arngeir smiles, and reaches out to pat her shoulder. “It is,” he confirms. “But we have not opened that wing in some time. When next you visit, we will make sure it has been cleaned up a bit. For you,” he says, “and your friend, should she wish it.”

Eres cannot express her gratitude in a way that could ever allow Arngeir to understand just how grateful she is to him. Not for the first time, she feels a bit ashamed of the judgment she had made of him at first. “Thank you.”

Arngeir bows his head. “Of course. Be on your way, then - you’ll want to make it down the mountain before nightfall, I expect.”

Eres does not hug the man, though she must admit there is a part of her that wants to - if only for what he had done for Serana, if nothing else. She will always be grateful to him for that. But she does grasp his forearm in the manner she has seen many Nords do, squeezes it in her hand and hopes that he understands what she means. She thinks, from the way he smiles down at her, that he does.

Eres turns, then, calling out to Serana. “Ready to go?”

“I could not be _more_ ready,” Serana replies, turning away from the sunrise. She joins Eres on the path, and seems all too happy to put more distance between her and the temple. “I don’t suppose you know of a shortcut to Riverwood.”

At that, Eres snorts. “Sorry, no. Unless you’d like to go leaping off the side of the mountain, that is.” Serana looks away from her, toward the edge of the path, and Eres snatches her by the hand and tugs her away. “Don’t _even_ think about it.”

“It _would_ be faster,” Serana jokes, and already her voice sounds so much lighter.

Eres does not tell her of Arngeir. It is not because she wants to lie to Serana, or keep the truth from her, necessarily - but because the pain that Serana carries has always been a private one. If Eres was not _Eres_ —would Serana even have allowed _her_ to see it? Eres knows that Serana would not have wanted the monks here to know of it, had it been up to her.

So just this once, just in _this,_ only—Eres will keep it to herself. She doesn’t need to know. Serana is content with Eres’ support alone—but she may not have accepted that of the Greybeards, strangers to her as they were. Eres holds her hand just a little tighter, just a little closer.

If only she knew, Eres thinks. If only she knew just how many people _care_. Even those who barely knew her. It’s alright if she doesn’t, just yet. They have some work to do yet, on that end. But one day, Eres will show her. She will show her the world, if she can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Serana's trauma, Valerica: Valerica has been shown in-game to be at least somewhat cold regarding the original event, and as such past-Valerica from Serana's POV is very different from Valerica's own perception of the event which we've already seen in a past chapter (notably, act 5). Valerica has always struck me as a woman who tends towards keeping up appearances, so though on a personal level Valerica did have second thoughts/regrets, it makes sense to me that she would have presented a united front during/leading up to the actual ritual, which is part of the reason why Serana and Valerica have such a strained relationship. Valerica is definitely a very flawed character in more ways than one. She's a bit on the darker side of the grey morality scale. 
> 
> 2\. We're moving quite slowly through this act compared to others, but I hope by now it's kind of obvious that there's good reason for the slower pace. The main quest is sort of sharing this act alongside the exploration into Serana's character, so we have to slow things down a bit more than usual to make room for both. I hope you guys don't mind it too much. :)


	10. Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Given that they are entering Skyhaven, this chapter does include a description of "self harm" in that Eres has to make herself bleed. Please be cautious when reading if this would be triggering for you. 
> 
> Other than that... Sorry for the wait, this is a super fucking long chapter and also I got distracted with making a mod to give a Seres twist to a home mod I was using... Next level hyperfixation. But hopefully the long ass chapter makes up for the wait...
> 
> Bonus: We broke 100k!!! WOO

Eres wastes no time with greeting Orgnar. The moment she enters the Sleeping Giant Inn, she makes a beeline for the furthest room on the right, and through the hidden passage behind the wardrobe down to the secret room. As she had expected, Delphine and Esbern are already present—as well as a welcome, familiar face.

“Inigo,” Eres blinks, surprised to see him. The Khajiit grins at her from his seat. “Where were you? Fellburg?”

He nods. “They are rebuilding well, my friend. Already several houses have been completed.” He rolls his neck then, with a pronounced wince. “Your mother is a _slavedriver_.”

“That’s what _I_ said.” Beside her, Serana snorts.

“Yes, yes,” Delphine ushers them further into the room. “If we could get to business… We didn’t expect you would take so long to reach us.”

“It’s only been two days,” Eres grouses, taking her seat all the same. “I told Esbern I needed to stop by High Hrothgar.”

“Yes, well,” Delphine looks away. She doesn’t say it, but it’s plain what she thinks of that. Likely, she thought the stop had been useless in its entirety. Eres disagrees.

“Did you find anything?”

“We did, as it turns out,” Esbern says. He points, unhelpfully, at the assortment of scrolls, tomes, and books scattered across Delphine’s war table. Eres glances at them, but she’s not about to start reading all of them. She looks back up at Esbern expectantly, waiting for an explanation.

“Between Delphine and I, we suspect that the most likely location for Alduin’s Wall—”

Eres holds up a hand, stopping him before he has the chance to start rambling. “What the hell is Alduin’s Wall?”

“Oh.” Esbern blinks. He looks back down at the mess he’s made of a table, up at her, and blinks again. “Oh, I forgot—you weren’t here for that discussion…” he mutters to himself, scratching at his chin. “Yes, well, let me… hmm…”

“Esbern…” Delphine sighs, watching as the man starts to sift through the clutter upon the table. With a roll of her eyes, Delphine looks at Eres. “Alduin’s Wall—it’s _said_ to have been built by the Akaviri, within Skyhaven Temple in the Reach—”

“Yes, yes,” Esbern huffs. “I was getting to that.” He straightens, crossing his arms over his chest in a manner that almost looks petulant. “Sky Haven Temple—it was constructed around one of the main Akaviri military camps long ago, during their conquest of Skyrim. There, it is said they built Alduin’s Wall—to set in stone all of the dragonlore they had accumulated. Despite the far-reaching fame of Alduin’s Wall at the time - one of the wonders of the ancient world - its location was lost to us long ago.”

“What does this wall have to do with stopping Alduin?”

“See,” Delphine points out, scowling at Esbern, “That’s why you _lead_ with that, instead of rambling about ancient histories and cultures.”

From the exasperation in Delphine’s voice, Eres can only guess that Esbern had told Delphine of this in much the same way that he is now telling her - in the most roundabout, long-winded way possible. Esbern, in turn, scowls darkly at the lot of them, muttering something about how not a single one of them had any respect for a _true_ historian.

“Alduin’s Wall,” Esbern begins, quite scornfully, “was where the ancient Blades recorded all they knew of Alduin and his return. Part history, part prophecy. Its location has been lost for centuries, but _I_ ,” he says pointedly, “have found it again. Not lost, you see—but forgotten.”

“History _and_ prophecy,” Eres remembers, vaguely, hearing of the Dragon War from her tutors. Given that it was Nordic legend rather than Imperial, her studies had never spent too much time on it. Her knowledge of the Dragon War is rudimentary at best—but if it was true that Alduin had come to Skyrim before and been defeated in the past... 

That means she has a chance.

“Well…” Esbern glances at Delphine, shifting on his feet. “That is—We will know more, once we reach the Wall.”

Serana lets out a long sigh. “I know one thing - this better not be another damned goose chase, or I’m _not_ going to be happy.”

But, Eres wonders—if this Alduin’s Wall had been so famous, why had the Greybeards not mentioned it to her before? They had trained her in the _Thu_ _’um_ , showed her the histories of the Dragonborn, of the line of Dragonborn that had once been emperors. They had even had her pore over the prophecies regarding Alduin’s return, insisted upon her recognizing her duty as Dragonborn in relation to him… And yet, not once had Arngeir ever mentioned this wall. Was it possible that Arngeir did not know of it, because the Blades had been the ones who built it? Or, was it that Arngeir had hidden it from her for some reason? And if he had, _why_?

“Do we know _where_ in the Reach this temple is?” Eres asks, pushing those questions to the back of her mind. She will have to ask Arngeir about this later. And he’d better have a good answer. “It would take us weeks to comb the entire hold for some hidden temple, if not longer.”

“I have an idea.” Esbern says. “I believe it may be located within Karthspire.” Esbern leans over to push several sheafs of parchment out of the way, pointing down at the area on the map.

“That’s not so far from Fellburg.” Eres notes, eying it. It’s not _close_ to Fellburg, but it was also not terribly far. Could this legendary temple really have been no more than a day’s ride from her own home, this entire time? “That area is controlled by the Forsworn, though.”

“Yes,” Esbern admits, “that is the unfortunate part of this. We will likely have to fight our way through the Forsworn camps in the region to reach the temple.”

“ _If_ it’s there,” Serana says, frowning. “You have no proof that’s where it actually is.”

“Perhaps not, but it is a lead. If it so happens the temple is _not_ where I believe it to be…” Esbern shrugs. “Then at least we will have made the area safer for travelers.”

Serana sneers at him, clearly displeased with that response. “And what then, we go searching all around the countryside out there until we find out?”

“No,” Esbern says patiently, “if it is _not_ there… Then we will have to return to the drawing board. But I am certain.” He taps the map pointedly. “This is where we will find it. Within Karthspire. I’m _certain_ of it.”

Eres sighs, bracing her hands on her hips. “Alright, then. Serana and I will go—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Esbern tuts, shaking his head. “We are _all_ going. What hope would you have of interpreting Alduin’s Wall without me there? It would be a waste for you to find it and have to come retrieve us to bring us there. We will _all_ go to Karthspire. Safety in numbers, after all.”

Given the way Esbern had once tried to fry Serana, Eres isn’t so sure about that. That being said, she must admit that his aim had gotten better on the ride towards Riverwood—and he had at least seemed to accept Serana’s presence, vampire or not. She’s not particularly thrilled about traveling with such a large party, but what choice does she have? Esbern has a point. They would be wasting time if they found it without him there.

“Let’s get this over with, then.” Eres says. “I don’t suppose you have a few extra horses lying around for all of us, do you?”

Delphine chuckles. “Esbern and I will ride together. Inigo brought one from Fellburg, and your beau here doesn’t need one. I think we’ll be just fine with what we have.”

Well, she has a point there.

Eres looks to Serana beside her. “Meet us at Karthspire?”

“And miss all the fun?” Serana drawls, at her most dry. “I’ll stick close and keep a lookout for the Forsworn when we get further west.” She pauses, then, her lips pressing together. “Do you want me to stop by Fellburg for anything?”

Eres looks away. “No.” She has nothing to offer Fellburg right now. She doesn’t even have a real _plan_. What is she supposed to tell them? That she’s _maybe_ found a way to fight Alduin but she isn’t sure yet? That she has no idea how she’s going to defeat the very thing that razed their homes to the ground? That had nearly killed Yosef’s only son?

Fellburg doesn’t need a _message_ from her, right now. They need _action_ , and that is what she will give them. And when she does have something to show for it, when she’s proved that she’s doing all she can—when she’s defeated Alduin and his dragon minions once and for all—that’s when she’ll have something to say to the people there. That’s when she’ll return there.

That’s when she’ll feel like she has a _right_ to be there at all. Until then, she can only keep moving forward. She can only keep fighting for the day when Fellburg will be safe enough that she can set their minds at ease. Until then, she’s probably the last person they’d want to see or hear from. She’ll make sure that they don’t, until the time is right.

* * *

“Forsworn,” Eres mutters, peering down at the camp below. Wincing, she shifts in her crouch, feeling an uncomfortable tightness at the inside of her thighs. One of these days, she’s going to have to get used to horseback. It was certainly a lot faster than walking everywhere, but she wonders at times if perhaps her body just isn’t built for such a thing.

Still, with the horses Delphine had procured, they had managed to make it Karthspire in record time. Eres cannot say she is overly glad for it - she might have liked to take an extra day to rest in Riverwood, once they’d reached it from High Hrothgar. But Delphine and Esbern had been insistent that they must leave for Karthspire as soon as possible, that they simply _must_ find this temple they spoke of, and it could not wait even a night longer. It isn’t that Eres minds camping so much—she has probably camped more in the past few years than she has spent in actual beds, if she is honest, or at least very close to it.

But, after the ordeal at High Hrothgar, she wishes that she and Serana had had a bit of time to relax to themselves. As it is, it seems they will not get to do so for some time yet.

“Oh, wonderful,” Serana drawls, at her ear. “I suppose I could do for a snack or two.”

Eres chuckles. She quiets when Esbern sends her a dark look. “They’re going to die anyway,” she mutters, more to herself than him.

Perhaps spending too much time around Serana has made her a bit callous about this kind of thing, but really, was it such a bad thing for Serana to feed on people they would have killed either way? The Forsworn certainly wouldn’t hesitate to kill _them_. It’s not like they would be using the blood once they were dead, anyways.

“Let’s not get lenient.” Delphine, as always, gravitates to command even when she is not asked for it. “There’s a lot of them in that camp of theirs, and there will probably be more inside the cave before we get to the temple. We should be careful on our approach. Esbern, how’s that staff of yours?”

“New,” Esbern drawls, sending Eres a particularly baneful glance. Eres shrugs, entirely unrepentant. If he hadn’t tried to hurl a fireball into Serana’s face, she wouldn’t have tossed his staff. He should’ve been more careful about who he pointed that thing at. “Even without it, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve - as you know, I am sure.”

“Oh, I’m aware.”

Eres’ nose wrinkles, despite herself. By the gods, are they _flirting_? Is that what she and Serana sound like? She’s going to have to do something about that. 

“Inigo will take the high ground,” Inigo whispers, and then he is making off to do just that before Eres can argue it.

Eres pulls her bow from her shoulders, nocks an arrow, and aims for the nearest head she spots. The arrow sings as it pierces the air, punctuated by the pained yelp of the man it hits - unfortunately, in the shoulder rather than the head. He crumples all the same, and Eres manages to land another in his back that stills him. Even so, she frowns, dissatisfied. She really needs to see about getting herself a new bow. This old pilfered one isn’t going to cut it much longer. Her aim hasn’t been nearly as sharp since she lost her old one.

“And so the show begins…” Serana murmurs, and she stands, too, magical energy already curling in both of her hands. Eres remains crouched, making herself as small a target as she can while the Forsworn still search fruitlessly for her—Inigo fires from somewhere southeast of her, another several arrows fired from the opposite direction in quick succession.

Cries of alarm sound in the brisk air as the Forsworn rally below them, and there are far more of them than Eres might have guessed at first sight.

“Serana, the Hagraven—”

“I’ll take care of her.” Serana promises, and in the blink of an eye, she is gone from Eres’ side, moving at speed to find the most dangerous of those they will find below. Delphine and Esbern charge ahead of her, Esbern summoning not one but _three_ Atronachs all at once to split in separate directions and rain fire upon those who might come too close.

It feels like indiscriminate murder. It feels like little more than a massacre, a slaughter, and yet—Eres knows it is necessary. It is not as though the Forsworn would have gladly set their weapons aside and allowed them to pass unharmed. They are as hostile as bandits, attacking anyone they see outside of their own, and Eres knows there is nothing they could have done to prevent this. That does not stop her from regretting it, a little, wondering if a person better than herself might have been able to negotiate with them.

The Forsworn are just as human as any other, just as mortal. The Hagravens—they were debatable, at best. But the Forsworn… Eres is not so sure she could categorize them all solely as evil. She knows enough of their history, of the Reachmen who had this land stolen from them, and she cannot help but wonder if perhaps the Bosmer would have been as Forsworn, had Valenwood been taken in a similar fashion.

In some ways, the Forsworn themselves may not be so different from the very Nords they claim to hate so much. At least, that was, in regards to the Rebellion.

 _Skyrim is for the Nords_ , they would say—but hadn’t it belonged to the Forsworn, first?

Eres pushes those thoughts out of her mind as she fights. She cannot think of their humanity. She cannot allow herself to empathize with them, not now. Empathizing with the enemy is the surest way to get oneself killed for hesitating at just the wrong moment. She will not allow herself to fall in such a manner. There is far too much at stake for that.

She tells herself it is necessary. In the end, what she is doing now will save all of them. It is for the good of all of them here. It is for—

Eres’ next shot goes wide. She drops beneath a rock outcropping on the hill before one of them can take advantage of her hesitation. Eres breathes, tries to calm her mind. Tries to push thoughts of _him_ far away from the surface.

For the greater good. Isn’t that the same thing Altano had said to her, when he had justified her murder of Balor? After all this time, has she just become him? How long will his shadow hang over her mind? How long will she still feel his influence over her? Will she ever escape him?

Eres swears under her breath. She is not Altano. She has never been Altano. She’s always been _Eres_ , and she is better than he was. She is better than he could have ever been. She can’t allow herself to be infected by him any longer.

She stands, bow in hand, and fires again. This time, her arrow sails true. She will not miss again.

* * *

The battle does not last long, between the five of them. More than five, if one counted Esbern’s summonings.

By the time the last Forsworn has fallen, a light rain has started to fall upon the valley, dousing the flames Esbern’s atronach had set.

Everywhere she looks, there is carnage - the bodies of those she had killed herself, arrows punched through their flesh. Inigo’s kills as well, remarkably similar to her own. Serana’s, impaled by lances of ice or entire bodies frozen solid, several Forsworn who dropped upon the ground with their muscles tightly contracted, arms seized close to their chest—a horrid, painful death by way of lightning spells brandished without mercy. There are the piles of ash and bone, men and women alike incinerated by Esbern’s atronachs or fireballs.

Somehow, of all the bodies that litter the ground, Delphine’s work seems the most humane.

There is a part of Eres, looking at them, that feels like a monster. That she is no better than the demons she has spent the last couple of years of her life fighting. How many people have died by her hands? How many more people will she kill, without thought?

“Come,” Delphine calls. “What we’re looking for must be just inside here.”

Delphine turns, Esbern and Inigo at her heels. None of them hesitate. None of them so much as spare a glance at the massacre they have enacted with their own hands. Eres finds that she cannot look away from it, no matter how much she wishes she could.

She’s lost count of how many people she has killed. When had that happened? When had she stopped caring to take note of them?

“Eres?”

Serana stands before her, as immaculate as ever. Despite how many she had killed with her own hands, there is not even the slightest spill of blood upon her person. Eres notices, too, that she does not look as though she has recently fed.

Eres pushes the dark thoughts to the back of her mind. Now isn’t the time for her to worry about them.

“I thought you were going to have a snack?” She asks, forcibly casual.

By the look Serana gives her, she’s not entirely successful, but the woman doesn’t press the issue.

“Your _friends_ are a bit too impatient for my liking.” Serana sniffs, making a face. “That,” she says with a shrug, “and too many of them reek of skooma. Ruined my appetite.”

Eres hums, turning to follow Delphine and the others. Serana falls in step beside her naturally. “Does it really taste different, if they’re addicts?”

“It does,” Serana confirms. “Same as rotting meat wouldn’t taste good to you, I imagine.” Eres wrinkles her nose at that, and Serana smirks. “Unfortunately, vampires also aren’t _completely_ immune to addiction. It’s better not to feed off people who still might have toxins in their blood, just in case.”

The cave ahead of them opens up into a small clearing, where the others have gathered upon a staircase built into an incline on one side. Above them, there is the dull grey of overcast skies—and all around her, Eres sees the remnants of a temple built into the rock and ground around them.

“I have never understood the Forsworn,” Inigo says from ahead of her. “Why do they all dress like they stumbled through a thorn bush?”

“I think the bigger problem is how are we going to get inside?” Eres points upward, to the opening she can see at the other end—far above any of their heads. If she got closer, she might be able to find some way to climb up there, but it wouldn’t be a good idea in this rain. With the rain slicking the rocks, trying to scale a cliff with no equipment would be just asking for trouble. 

“Look there.” Delphine gestures to her, beckoning her up the incline, and points across the wide gap. On the other side, Eres sees it - what looks to be some kind of stone drawbridge like structure, raised on the other side. “These pillars here must have something to do with it.”

Eres looks to her right, sees the familiar looking puzzle-pillars, and sighs. Of course it would be a fucking puzzle.

Already irritated, Eres makes her way to Esbern, standing beside them. There are three just in front of her, situated in a line, and Eres can easily guess that arranging the pillars in the correct order will drop the bridge. This certainly isn’t the first or even the tenth time she’s faced one of these particular puzzles in an old ruin. The symbols on the pillars, however, are new. She reaches out to turn the one in the center, looking at each symbol carved into each of the pillar’s three sides.

“I don’t recognize these symbols.” Eres turns her head, peering around her at the walls of the clearing they’ve found themselves in. Usually, the solution to puzzles like these were craftily hidden amongst the ruin’s architecture. In some cases, she had to guess the last symbol or two, but typically, she could find all of them well enough. This time, however, she doesn’t see any carvings or engravings that look anything like what she’d seen on the pillar.

“These are Akaviri symbols,” Esbern explains. “You have the symbol for ‘King’, and ‘Warrior’…” Esbern turns one of the pillars on his own, but Eres sees nothing about the symbols that would suggest their translation. “Ah, and this one—this is the symbol for Dragonborn.”

Surely, it couldn’t be that easy?

Eres tries it, all the same, shifting the other two pillars to match the one Esbern has turned. At once, she hears the grating of stone upon stone as the bridge lowers across the gap. “Wow.” She says, thoroughly unimpressed. “So much for security.”

“Whatever you did, it worked.” Delphine shrugs, clearly uncaring. “Let’s see what those old Blades left in our way.”

“You would think someone else would have figured this out by now.” Eres mutters, watching Esbern and Delphine move ahead of her.

“Perhaps no one has tried?” Inigo offers, shrugging as well. “Or perhaps, no one is as smart as you are.”

Eres doubts that would be the case.

“Or,” Serana offers, much more logically, “perhaps the puzzle had to be completed by someone who is actually Dragonborn. Given how simple that was, I doubt, in all this time, that _no one_ has ever tried to get in here. There has to be a reason why it had never been accessed before now.”

Eres has no idea if that’s true, but it does make her feel marginally better about the intelligence of these legendary Blades they’re after. Otherwise, how could she trust any lore they left behind, if their idea of closing off a temple from the common rabble was so simplistic?

“Dragonborn?” Esbern’s voice calls ahead of her, and Eres hurries to meet them up the next incline. There, Esbern and Delphine stand side by side at the very edge of a suspiciously placed stone floor. Inigo has taken to leaning over it, peering at the symbols inscribed upon the stone surfaces. “It appears to be some kind of trap.”

“I can see that.” Sadly, it’s not her first time seeing pressure plates, either. Ustengrav had no shortage of those. These ones do look different, however. “Pressure plates.”

“Indeed. Perhaps you should be the first to cross, _Dragonborn_ ,” he says pointedly. “I don’t want to imagine what may happen if someone without the dragon blood is the first to cross—even if they step upon the correct symbols.”

“You think it can tell?” Delphine asks.

Esbern shrugs helplessly. “I cannot say for sure. It is better to be safe than sorry.”

Eying the floor quickly, Eres does see that the symbol for Dragonborn is engraved upon a number of the tiles—stretching in a random pattern from where they stand to what appears to be, of course, a pullchain. A pullchain she would bet deactivates whatever trap may be laid beneath the plates.

“Fine.” Even so, Eres puts the very toe of her boot upon the first plate and presses down. Only when it does not react to the weight does she shuffle further onto it, until she is standing just upon it—and nothing happens. Eres continues in that manner, first over-cautiously, then with much more confidence as each subsequent plate she steps on is just as silent and safe as the first. It takes her mere minutes to reach the chain. Even as she pulls it, she says, “I would stick to the symbols, even still. Just to be on the safe side.”

With that, she follows the remaining symbols to the connected little hall, and there she waits for the others to join her. It takes them even less time than it had taken her, of course, with the added confidence of having seen someone else pass through unharmed ahead of them.

Eres turns when she sees the last of them step upon solid ground at last, and then she is moving ahead of them all through the short, natural hall carved into the stone of the mountainside, and she takes no more than a few short steps before she again feels rain upon her skin. With a look above her, she sees that the sky itself has opened up above them, and now they stand within a wide clearing in which there is nothing but rock and stone and the exterior of what appears to be a temple - as well as a strange circular symbol upon the ground just in the center of it. Just in front of that symbol, not far ahead of her, is an actual face carved into the side of what appears to be a building made of strong, dark stone.

She sees not a single door anywhere else. She would bet that however they entered this temple, it had something to do with the symbol under her feet.

“Ah…” Esbern approaches at her right side, his staff thunking against the stone beneath them. “The blood seal. Another of the lost Akaviri arts. No doubt triggered by… well, blood, of course. _Your_ blood, Dragonborn.” Before she can say anything to that, Esbern is already wandering away. “Look here—you see how the ancient Blades revered Reman Cyrodiil? This whole place appears to be a shrine to Reman. He ended the Akaviri invasion under mysterious circumstances, you recall—”

“Esbern, no one cares.” Delphine huffs. Esbern scowls. “Your blood should work on the seal. Hopefully, that will be our way in.”

Eres can’t help the way her gaze shifts to Serana.

Serana, who holds herself very still and does not meet her gaze. Instead, Serana’s eyes are fixed upon the strange seal embedded in the ground, tracing the inscriptions marked upon it.

Eres looks at it, too, and though she does not fear that Serana would have any trouble restraining herself, she does worry what effect this will have upon her. Eres has not found herself injured since before their relationship had evolved, since before her blood had become a temptation.

She hears the sound of glass clinking against glass, then, and knows even without looking that it is the vials within the satchel Serana wears. The very same one that now holds the blood extractor within it.

It will be fine, Eres tells herself. She has nothing to worry about. Serana already has several blood potions from her - even if she _did_ get tempted by this, she already has a way to combat it. Eres tells herself that, but even she does not entirely believe it. She knows there is a difference between bottled blood and fresh blood.

Serana had told her as much herself, and in all the time she has known her, she has never seen Serana _once_ choose bottled blood over fresh. Hell, Eres has never seen her consume bottled blood _at all_ , in all the time they have known each other, unless one counted the singular time she had done so after the battle with Harkon. How can she be sure that it will satisfy Serana, when there will be fresh blood right in front of her for the taking?

Not that she would not freely give it to her, if Serana asks. But she knows more than most just how hard Serana is on herself, and how carefully she has kept herself from consuming Eres’ blood at all. Serana would hold it against herself if she was tempted by it, even if she did not ask. And Eres knows better now than to offer it, especially in the company of others.

Serana meets her eyes, then, one of her hands already buried deep within the satchel at her hip, and nods. She does not look particularly hungry—Eres has gotten rather good at being able to tell, just with a look—but rather, she looks cautious. Careful.

Now, Eres sort of wishes they’d bothered to leave a couple more of the Forsworn alive. Perhaps Serana could have found one or two who had not been into skooma recently, if they hadn’t killed them all so quickly. Serana could have made herself scarce for this, had a fresh meal before she had to deal with Eres bleeding in front of her.

As it is now, though, it cannot be helped. It is their only way in.

“Dragonborn?” Delphine prompts. “Any day now. Before the sky opens up on us, preferably.” She gestures needlessly toward the seal.

Esbern, however, shifts uncertainly, clasping his hands in front of him. “Perhaps your friend should—”

Eres scowls at him so darkly that he snaps his mouth shut. He should know better than to suggest ill of Serana by now, especially right in front of her. Eres isn’t worried that Serana will hurt her. She’s worried that it will only serve to make Serana more anxious about being around her. That it will only add to the stress she is already dealing with, especially so soon after High Hrothgar.

But if she does not do this, then they will not be able to enter Skyhaven, they will not find Alduin’s Wall, and she will have no hope of learning how to defeat Alduin. Then, they would all just die eventually, anyways.

Funny, how so many of the choices she is offered seem very little like choices when she thinks about them. Sure, she could _choose_ not to face her destiny. But she had seen where that had gotten her with Fellburg. She’s learned her lesson since then.

With a sigh, Eres pulls her dagger from her waist, and draws the blade across her skin.

“That’s done it! Look, there’s the entrance.” Delphine gasps as the giant face upon the wall begins to recede and pull upwards, revealing a dark, narrow hall.

A hand lands on Eres’ shoulder before she can think to look for Serana.

“After you, Dragonborn,” Delphine says, smiling. “You should have the honor of being the first to step foot in Skyhaven Temple.” Even as she says it, she pushes insistently at Eres’ back, urging her forward. Eres turns to look, but then there is Inigo, pulling up the rear, blocking her view. Inigo looks behind him, too, as if to look for what she is looking for, but he turns and shrugs at her.

Eres frowns in the deep darkness of the corridor. She hardly even notices Delphine light a torch as they climb, hardly even hears Esbern as he mumbles to himself about the architecture. She has no idea how Serana is doing, now, and she feels the uncomfortable stickiness of drying blood upon her fingers as it travels down from her wrist to cover her hand. Did Inigo shaking his head mean that Serana had left?

That would make sense, Eres supposes. If Serana left so soon after she’d made the cut, Eres knows what the reason must be. She’s certainly not going to hold it against her if Serana needs some time to go hunting or remove herself from the situation. They’d had little warning, after all. But then—Serana _did_ have the blood potions Eres had made for her. Why would she need to leave, when she could just take one of them if she wished to?

Or, alternatively, it could be that Serana is far behind her, hidden in the narrow corridor behind Delphine and Inigo and in the darkness of deep shadow. It could be that Serana is still there, but has not seen fit to speak just yet. If she’s holding her breath to avoid smelling the blood, Eres considers, she may not speak at all.

When she has a moment away from the others, she will set about cleaning and bandaging the wound properly - for Serana’s sake, if not her own.

“Amazing… You can see how the Akaviri craftsmen were starting to embrace the more flowing Nordic style…” Esbern mutters, holding the torch close to one of the reliefs on the wall.

Delphine urges them ever forward. “Esbern, we’re here for Alduin’s Wall, remember?”

“Yes, yes… I suppose we’ll have more time to look around later.”

Ahead of them, at last, the narrow stairwell begins to widen, opening up into a chamber so large it might have been able to fit an entire army inside it at one point. In the very center, there is a long stone table, chairs still askance just beside it as if someone had had a meeting there and simply left one day and never returned. Everywhere Eres looks, there is nothing but the dark stone of the temple, and the remnants of a people that no longer exist.

“Shor’s _Bones_!” Esbern exclaims, rushing off ahead of them. He rushes forward so quickly he bumps into her, nearly knocking her off balance as he goes. Delphine helps to steady her even as Esbern runs across the room, with far too much agility for a man of his advanced age. “Here it is! Alduin’s Wall… So well preserved… I’ve never seen a finer example of early second era Akaviri sculptural relief…”

Eres steps closer. If there is one spell she is comfortable with using almost absently, it is the simplistic Magelight - she calls several globules of bright light into her hands, sending them into the darkest corners of the room. In short order, all of the central chamber is bathed in the ethereal glow of it. Esbern, even so, takes the time to light the coals that still remain in the braziers at either side of the relief he now stands in front of.

It _is_ impressive, for what it is. Eres does not understand how it’s supposed to help her defeat Alduin, but on a purely artistic basis, it is impressive enough. Carving images into stone can’t be easy, she imagines, and the relief carved across the wall’s surface are very well done.

Aside from that however, she has no idea what its meaning might be. She sees a dragon, here, and warriors there, and yet—nowhere does she see any answer to the one question she has. How is this wall supposed to help her defeat Alduin?

“Esbern! We need information, not a lecture on art history.” Delphine, as always, takes it upon herself to talk sense into the rambling man.

“Yes, yes… Let’s see what we have…”

Eres turns her head, spotting Inigo wandering along the outer perimeter of the chamber, peering into one of the hallways that connects to it for what might be beyond it. And there, when she turns in the other direction, is Serana, idling near the long stone table on the level just below the stage where the Wall is set upon. She does not appear to wish to come any closer, and so Eres does not press her on it. She is satisfied just to see her and know that she is well and nearby.

Esbern starts on the very left side, where Eres had spotted the dragon just moments ago.

“Look, here is Alduin.” Esbern set his torch into the brazier just beside him so that he can trace the relief with a hand, pointing out the relevant structures within it. “This panel goes back to the beginning of time, when Alduin and the Dragon Cult ruled over Skyrim.”

Eres shifts impatiently. She doesn’t need a history lesson. She needs to know what she can do _now._ But she also knows the kind of scholar Esbern is, and knows that interrupting him now will only make him take even longer to get to the point.

“Here, the humans rebelled against their dragon overlords—the legendary Dragon War.” Esbern moves further to the right, towards the center of the relief which, if Eres is honest, she could not have guessed as to the meaning of. She _does_ see something that almost looks like one of the Greybeards, at the very bottom, but nothing else that looks familiar.

“Alduin’s defeat is the centerpiece of this wall,” Esbern explains. “You see, here he is falling from the sky.” Eres tilts her head. Squints. She can only _just_ see it, if she tries looking for it. Otherwise it just sort of looks like a weird cloud. But she supposes those might be scales, there, and maybe that is supposed to be Alduin’s head… “The Nord Tongues - masters of the Voice - are arrayed against him.”

Wait—the Nord Tongues? Masters of the Voice? Had the Greybeards once gone by another name, at some point?

“So does it show how they defeated him? Isn’t that why we’re here?” Delphine asks.

“Patience, my dear. The Akaviri were not a straightforward people. Everything is couched in allegory and mythic symbolism. But, here, you see—” he points to the wall again, at a symbol Eres does not recognize. “Coming from the mouths of the Nord heroes, here—this is the Akaviri symbol for _Shout_.”

Eres straightens. _That_ sounds more like what she needs.

But Esbern frowns, peering closer. “But, there’s no way to know what Shout is meant.”

“They used a _Shout_ to defeat Alduin?” Eres asks, doubt coloring her voice. The idea of a Shout being enough to defeat him sounds… too easy. It feels like it should be much more difficult than that. Surely, that wouldn’t be enough. “You’re _sure_?”

“Oh, yes,” Esbern says. “Presumably something rather specific to dragons, or Alduin himself. Remember, this is where they recorded all they knew of dragons and Alduin himself. And here,” Esbern continues, moving ever further along the wall, “are the Akaviri - the Blades - you see their distinctive longswords. Now they kneel, their ancient mission fulfilled, as the last Dragonborn contends with Alduin at the end of time. I know the prophecy by heart, as all the Blades knew it. _When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world_ _…”_

This, Eres knows. This is the very same prophecy she had seen in the book Julia had showed her, before she’d sought out the Greybeards herself. Now, that time seems like it could have been decades ago. That prophecy had been the very thing that had convinced her to go to them, to find out what it meant to be Dragonborn.

“Have _you_ ever heard of such a thing?” Delphine asks her. For a moment, Eres has no idea what she is referring to until she says, “A shout that can knock a dragon out of the sky?”

 _If I knew that_ , Eres thinks, _I wouldn_ _’t be here in the first place._ If she’d had any idea such a Shout existed, why would she be wasting her time hunting down some long-lost temple? She would be out there, in the world, searching tirelessly for the Word Wall that might carry the knowledge she needs. But—if her hunch is right about the old Nord Tongues being somehow related to the Greybeards, she at least has a hunch of where to start looking.

“The Greybeards might know.”

Delphine’s expression sours. “You’re probably right,” she admits, albeit grudgingly. “I was hoping to avoid having to involve them in this, but it seems we have no choice.”

Eres is getting tired of being in the dark on this. “What is it you have against them?” She asks. “The Greybeards don’t seem that fond of the Blades, either.”

“If they had _their_ way,” Delphine says scornfully, “you’d do nothing but sit up on their mountain with them and talk to the sky—or whatever it is they do up there all day.”

That…actually isn’t so far from the truth, if Eres is honest. Aside from meditating and prayer and studying ancient scrolls and tomes, the Greybeards don’t really do much of anything.

“The Greybeards are so afraid of power that they won’t use it. And they don’t want _you_ to use it, either.”

Eres frowns at that. “They’ve taught me how to use my power, though,” she tells her. “If they were afraid of me using it, they wouldn’t have taught me anything.”

“Think about it.” Delphine presses her. “Have they tried to stop the civil war? Or have they done _anything_ about Alduin himself?” Delphine doesn’t need her to answer. “No,” she supplies, all on her own. “And they’re afraid of _you_ , of _your_ power as Dragonborn. Trust me—there’s no need to be afraid of it. Think of Tiber Septim. Do you think he’d have founded the Empire if he’d listened to the Greybeards?”

Eres crosses her arms. “I get it, I do—but power _is_ dangerous, if it’s in the wrong hands.”

“Are _your_ hands the wrong ones, then?” Delphine asks pointedly. “If there is anyone in this world who _needs_ to be at one with their own power, it’s you. You’re the only hope we have for defeating Alduin. What good will sitting on your hands do, or meditating up on that stupid mountain all day do? Nothing, that’s what. It won’t do a damn thing. You won’t save anyone, and you’ll have a front row seat from the highest peak to watch the world burn beneath you.”

“Power is only dangerous if you don’t know how to use it.” Delphine continues. “All the great heroes have had to learn to use their power. You are no different. Those that shrank from their destiny… Well. You’ve never heard of _them,_ have you?”

Those that shrink from their destiny… She’s done that, once. And look where it got her. She’s not going to make that mistake again, even if she is hesitant about it all. She’ll push herself through that hesitation because she has to.

“There _are_ villains, of course. Those that misused their power. There’s always a choice in it, always a risk. But if you live in fear of what might go wrong, then you’ll end up doing nothing. Like the Greybeards, up on their mountain.”

Gods damn it all. She’s going to have to climb that stupid fucking mountain again. She really needs to find a way to contact Gelebor and see if he can recreate those Wayshrines elsewhere. How much simpler her life would be, if she could have one of those wherever she might need to travel to and from on a regular basis.

“Fine,” she sighs out. She peers upward, toward the sky. There isn’t much daylight left behind those clouds, and she’s not going to be caught out wandering the Reach in the pitch-dark of night. Not with the Forsworn behind every nook and cranny. “In the morning, we’ll head back to High Hrothgar. Maybe Arngeir will know something about this Shout.”

“Good thing they’ve already let you into their little cult. Not like they’d help Esbern or me if were to come calling ourselves. We’ll take a look around and see what else the Blades might have left for us. It’s a better hideout than I could have hoped for. We could make this a base for our operations from here on out.”

It’s a bit out of the way for anything Eres would want to make a _base_ out of, and that wasn’t even mentioning the fact they’d likely have to fight their way through the Forsworn at Karthspire anytime they wanted to come here. Unless there’s another entrance hidden somewhere, that is. The Forsworn aren’t likely to leave Karthspire alone—eventually, they will try to reclaim it.

Inigo, to Eres’ surprise, steps toward Delphine. “What is this _Blades_ business all about?” He asks. “Can Inigo be a Blade? It is protecting the Dragonborn, yes?”

“Ah, interested are you? Come, you can help me look around…” Delphine turns briefly to call over her shoulder, pointing off towards one of the halls Inigo had been inspecting earlier. “I imagine there’s rooms or beds somewhere deeper in the Temple, if you plan on spending the night here. In fact—there’s probably a room specifically meant for the Dragonborn to stay in, if you’re willing to look for it.”

The thought of finding a place to rest is not an unwelcome one. But as Esbern and Delphine and Inigo all wander off in separate directions, Esbern to scout out further reliefs in the ancient stone walls of the temple, Delphine and Inigo, presumably, to hunt down what the Blades may have left behind, there is but one thing Eres can think of, and it is not finding a room.

Instead, Eres turns where she stands, her eyes falling upon Serana, leaning against the long stone table at the center of the room. Serana, who looks at her, now, eyes unusually bright even beneath the ethereal glow of the magelights Eres has placed. Serana, who watches her so much more keenly than usual.

Eres feels her pulse at her wrist, and wonders if Serana can hear it.

* * *

Serana should have expected this.

Really, she should have. She should have expected that, as soon as she felt _almost_ ready to handle things, almost ready to move forward, that something would set her back again, that something would inevitably come back to shove her several steps backward when she had just managed a single step forward. She should have known.

She should have expected, with her luck, that this exact situation would come up, at this exact time, in this exact kind of way. It was Murphy’s law, after all—whatever could go wrong, _will_ go wrong, and everything has gone wrong in truly the most spectacular way imaginable.

Just a few days ago, Eres had filled several vials of her blood with the extractor, for Serana to use in case the temptation overtook her. That was a good thing.

Serana had not touched them just yet. Eres had joked that she was saving them for a rainy day—she wasn’t, not really, but she had wanted a bit of time to prepare. A bit of time off from the running here and there all around Skyrim, just so she would have time to _process_. So that she would have time to get used to it. She had told herself that it could wait.

That was a bad thing.

Eres bleeding right in front of her from a fresh wound mere minutes after Serana had _just_ finished fighting, with the thrill of a battle still running through her veins, with her instinct so very close to the surface… That was also a bad thing.

The fact that she can smell the scent of her blood, fresh and ripe in the air? Bad thing.

That she can close her fingers around the vials of bottle blood in her satchel, knowing it would not taste half as good as the blood trickling from the small cut on Eres’ wrist? Bad.

Bad, bad, bad. All of it, _bad_.

Because her nose _knows_. Her brain knows. Her baser instinct _certainly_ knows. Knows that the real thing is right in front of her, that there is fresh blood there, _right there_ , for the taking, the blood of her lover, the blood of the one person whose blood would satisfy her more than any other—it is _right there_. Bad.

And then there are the vials in her hand. The vials she rolls between her fingers if only to occupy herself with something other than the thought of feeding from her. The vials that remind her that Eres has lost blood recently. That even if she wanted to, she could not feed directly from her.

She had not taken _much_ —she had even left a vial unfilled, not wanting to be greedy about it. But she had taken enough that feeding from her now, so soon after, would be a recipe for disaster. Eres will need time to replenish that blood she’s lost. Bad.

So much of it, bad.

It’s _bad_ , because it’s all that Serana can think about.

It is all Serana can do to keep her distance. She stays paces upon paces behind them, behind Eres, behind the others, keeping herself as far removed from her as possible without virtually running in the opposite direction. She is paces away and yet Serana can still see her and smell her and know that she is there if she wants her and there are moments that Serana has to just—stop.

She has to stop moving, stop walking, stop breathing, stop thinking—all so that she can just stop _feeling_ , for a moment. Just for a moment.

When she opens her eyes again, she still sees the blood on Eres’ hand. Her eyes are drawn to it as if by some magnetic force beyond her understanding, even as much as she tries to pull her eyes away. The sluggish trickle from the cut upon her wrist left unattended catches her gaze all the same, and Serana traces it’s path over the curve of her palm as gravity pulls upon it.

It is not a deep cut, by any means. Already, the bleeding has slowed, and in short order, it will stop entirely. The wound could even heal itself, given enough time, without any outside intervention at all. It is a thin, shallow slice through her skin that is not even in the slightest bit dangerous, but it _bleeds_ , and that is enough. It is enough for Serana to wonder what it tastes like.

It is enough for Serana to want it.

There is a part of her that wants to take it, there, damn all the consequences. That wants to pull Eres aside, pull her into a dark corner somewhere, bring that wrist to her lips and taste of the ambrosia she has deprived herself of since the day they met in that crypt.

The bleeding has slowed, now, but Serana could make it start again, so easily. _That_ version of her would hold Eres’ gaze while she does it, too, so much braver and bolder than her real self, just to show her, to prove to her—how much she wants her. How _maddening_ it is to be near her, like this. How much it drives her to do things she would not normally do. Would not normally even _want_ to do.

_“It is in your nature to dominate.”_

Serana shakes the thoughts from her head. The images. The desires. She’s not like that. She _isn_ _’t_. The vampire—her vampiric nature is a part of her, yes. But it is not _all_ that she is. She has always been able to restrain herself. This should be no different.

But again, her eyes drift to the hand. And then, in her effort to look anywhere else _but_ there, her eyes drift elsewhere, and that is almost just as dangerous.

More dangerous, even. As if she needs something else to worry about. As if she needs another temptation to resist, to fight against. As if she needs something else to remind her of the monster she is.

She is looking at a belt, suddenly. It strikes her, then, that Eres has turned to face her, and so she must know what Serana had been looking at just before. Serana, mortified, looks up—but Eres does not appear to think anything of it. She does look worried, a bit, but it does not seem to be related to that, at all.

Eres steps towards her, even as she pulls her bag from her shoulders. She moves like the blood does not concern her, like she thinks nothing of it—but Serana does see a certain kind of caution in her eyes.

She _should_ be cautious, a part of her thinks. Serana is dangerous, her vampiric nature is dangerous and she is _bleeding_ in front of a vampire. A vampire who wants her. Who wants her so desperately that she cannot think straight. Eres should keep her distance, let her breathe, but no—Eres will not. Eres can not.

Eres, wordlessly, sets her bag upon the stone table with a huff. Digging through it, she produces a roll of woven bandages, a small vial of cleaning alcohol, and a small square of folded linen. She brings out her waterskin, too, and then she is holding her arm out in front of her, pouring the water over the cut and her bloodied hand and there is a part of Serana that wants to snatch that arm away, that wants to growl and snap at her for _wasting it_.

Serana’s hand tightens around the vials in the satchel. She holds her breath. She watches.

She watches, and she waits.

Eres cleans the wound in silence. It is not an especially uncomfortable silence, but it is one all the same. Serana watches as she soaks the small linen pad with alcohol, as she brushes it over the small cut on her wrist to clean it thoroughly. She watches as Eres inspects it, as she presses her fingers on either side of the cut just to measure its severity, to determine if it will need stitches. The sides of it come together easily, and Eres tosses the cleaning pad to the table. She will not need stitches.

Serana could have told her that much. But she did not. She does not trust herself to speak, just now. If she did, she might have asked to clean it herself—and she would not have used gauze and alcohol to do it. Images of just that flash in the back of her mind, and Serana shifts on her feet, feeling suddenly uncomfortably warm. She must not think of such things—it is natural to her, because she is a vampire. Eres would—she would probably be horrified, if she knew.

If she knew the kind of monster that Serana is, deep down. If she knew the kinds of things that Serana thinks about, but does not say. Will not ever say. Could not ever say. Serana would never give voice to them. Voicing them aloud makes them real.

“Are you feeling alright?” Eres asks her. She does not look up from her arm, wrapping the bandage expertly around her wrist. It is not the first wound she has dressed, and it likely will not be the last. Serana herself has seen Eres injured far worse than this. But that had been before. Before Eres’ blood began to wake a desire in her that she refuses to give name to.

It takes Eres looking up at her, raising her brows expectantly, for Serana to realize that she has not actually answered the question. How long had it been since she asked?

“I’m fine.”

Eres looks away. Back at her arm. The expression on her face is unreadable.

“You don’t look fine.” That is all that she says. There is no true accusation in her tone, just—just stating a fact. She knows it just as well as Serana does.

She is nowhere near fine.

For what it is worth, she did consider it. She did consider walking away, uncorking one of the vials and using that to stave off her hunger for the night, keeping her distance from Eres as much as she can in this old temple. Temple—funny, that she thinks of it now, and she is so distracted by everything else that her fear of temples does not even register. Her mind is too preoccupied.

Preoccupied with Eres. Preoccupied with the way she moves, the sound of her voice, the look of her, the feel of her beneath her fingertips—Serana does not even remember reaching for her, does not remember stepping forward, taking hold of her, pulling her into her. She does not even realize she’s done it until she feels warmth on her skin, warmth against her body, warmth against her lips. Warmth that is not blood, no, but it is just as good, just as maddeningly addictive, just as all-encompassing a taste as that of her blood would be.

For a moment, Serana believes that this is better. That this is something she can handle. She knows the taste of Eres’ lips almost as well as her own, knows the feeling of her body against hers as well as she could know anything at all. She can kiss her, she can hold her, she can touch and feel and _breathe_ her in a way that almost fills the void inside her, in a way that satisfies her that is not dangerous, that will not drain Eres of the very life inside her that Serana loves so dearly.

But that is dangerous thinking. That is the fool in her thinking. That is the stupidity in her believing that this is somehow better, that she could control this hunger more than she could have controlled that for her blood. That the taste of Eres’ lips could have settled her, when it serves only to entice her further. When the warmth of her body does nothing but to spark the very embers that had been burning inside her since the blood seal itself, that it would only serve to stoke the flames of her desire further.

Eres is in her arms, in her mind, in her very soul, and she cannot breathe for the want of her. Eres, pressed against her, and yet somehow it is not close enough. Serana wants to connect with her in ways that she has not done with anyone, in ways that sends heat pooling low in her stomach and sinking ever lower still, a heat that burns and fuels all at once and Serana —

Serana tastes skin, beneath her lips. Skin that is not that of Eres’ lips, but of the corner of her jaw, of her throat, of her neck, of—

Something pulses against her lips, against her tongue. Something fevered and quick, something that races and bounds beneath the skin, something that makes the burn at the back of her throat nearly unbearable, something that fills her ears and mind until there is nothing but the sound of her pulse, there, the feel of it, the knowledge of what lies beneath it—the too-quick _thumpthump_ of a heartbeat, the sensation of it humming throughout her mouth, against her teeth, against—

A hand touches her stomach. Her stomach swoops in response as though in freefall, as though it drops from her body through the very floor she stands on and the feel of it leaves her breathless and panting and—and it _pushes_. She hears a voice at her ears, calling her name, but she is already stumbling backward, mind clouded and foggy and—and what is she—what had she been _doing_? What had she been thinking? What kind of—

The hand at her stomach curls, fisting in the fabric before Serana can pull away and run sprinting from the nearest door, before she can set her mind to right because everything is still—still muddied and uncertain and she’s not even sure—she’s not sure what’s happened.

She knows she’s done something _wrong,_ she knows she’s gone too far too quickly and she doesn’t know who she is at this point but there’s—there’s something muddying her thoughts, something that makes it feel as though they move through molasses, through tar, slow and sluggish and uncomprehending and—

And Eres is looking at her. There is the darkness in her eyes again, the same darkness that had left Serana near indisposed the last time she had seen it. But more than that, there is—there is kindness, and understanding, and compassion, and—and all the things she does not deserve, right now.

“You’re hungry,” is all that Eres says to her, but Serana flinches all the same. She had so expected a reprimand, a curse, a swear, that she flinches on instinct, that she expects to be scolded, to be shouted down—but of course, Eres does none of these things.

Instead, Eres takes a breath. She hops off the table—when had she gotten there?—and straightens her robes. Fusses with her hair.

“As much as I wouldn’t mind normally,” Eres says slowly, carefully, as though she is afraid of hurting her— _her_. Serana, who had nearly— “I don’t think it’s a good idea to do this when you haven’t fed recently.”

Serana blinks. Even that tiny, miniscule movement feels sluggish. She wants to run. She wants to disappear. She wants for all the world to go back in time and stop herself from letting it take hold of her but—but she cannot. She can only feel the dread that crawls up in her, threatening to swallow her whole. What has she _done_?

Eres’ brow furrows. Her eyes harden. Serana steels herself, already wincing on the inside, waiting for it.

“ _Don_ _’t_ think you did anything I didn’t like.” Eres says, far more heatedly than Serana would have expected her to say such a thing. She had expected an insult. She did not expect this. Serana stares back at her, unnerved.

Eres reaches for her collar, pulls her down until she had no choice but to look into her eyes, look into the truth in them, the love in them. “You didn’t do anything I wouldn’t have wanted.”

Serana opens her mouth to argue, to say anything, to prove to her that, that she’s not as upstanding as Eres thinks she is. She hadn’t been in her right mind, she still isn’t, she’s dangerous, she’s a monster, she’s…

But Eres says simply, “Not now,” And she kisses her, then, in a way that makes her knees weak and near re-ignites the fire in her all over again. When Eres pulls away from her, it takes everything in her not to chase her.

“Any other time,” Eres says simply, “but now isn’t a good time. Not here,” she says, and gestures vaguely at the temple around them. And the table Serana had pressed her against. “And not while you’re already hungry. Go hunt, and come back to me.”

“I—” Serana doesn’t know if she _can_. How can she even think to face her, after this? After—

“I love you.” Serana’s eyes snap to hers, her breath stuttering in her chest. She must have—she had to have misheard that, it wasn’t—it couldn’t be. “So come back to me.”

“I…” She should say it back. She should but—but who is she to do that? How could she let herself do that, after what had just happened? After what she’d done? No matter if Eres _said_ she enjoyed it, of course she would, she’s _nice_ like that and—

Eres smiles at her. It is one Serana has seen before, in the quiet moments. In the moments where they are alone and the world is not waiting for them. In the moments where Eres is for her, and no one else.

“I know,” she says. As simple as that. As she has said before, more than once. Only, now Eres has said it, _really_ said it, and—and she hasn’t. She can’t even do _that_ right. “Go hunt,” Eres repeats firmly. “Go now, and come find me when you’re done, _vhenan_.”

The word makes Serana pause. She catalogs it in her mind, tries to compare it to the languages she knows, and yet—she doesn’t know of any word that is similar to that. But her knowledge of Bosmeri is next to nonexistent.

“What does that mean?” Serana manages. Somehow, she manages to ask all of that, and she cannot even repeat three simple words.

Eres’ smile turns just the slightest bit knowing, just a little bit smug. She quirks a brow at her. “Come back, and I’ll tell you.”

Serana has to give it to her. Eres knows her, perhaps better than she knows herself at times. Eres knows how she feels, even without her saying it. Perhaps she can see it on her face, can see the way she wants to run away from this in her eyes. Perhaps this is Eres’ way of encouraging her not to. Of encouraging her to face it.

And. Eres loves her. Somehow. Someway. By some fine stroke of luck, Serana has managed to get Eres to love her, of all people. And if Eres asks her to come back then, well—she will come. It is not as if she could have stayed apart from her for long, all the same. But knowing that she is wanted… Perhaps that helps, a little. Perhaps it helps her to feel just a little less monstrous, right now.

Eres pulls her in for a hug, presses a chaste kiss to her lips. “Go on,” she tells her again, insistent. “I’m going to go find a room for us. And when you get back I’ll tell you what it means. And we can talk,” she says. “About this.”

She cannot manage to bring words to her lips, in that moment, and so she merely nods her agreement. She can do nothing else. Her voice seems to have died somewhere between her lungs and her throat, and she has already embarrassed herself enough. The first option is much more attractive than the second. Serana will return all the same. Because she loves her. And Eres, for some reason, loves her too.

And now, she knows it. Beyond any shadow of a doubt.

* * *

There’s a certain look that Serana gets about her, when she’s too deep in her own thoughts. There’s a certain look she has about her when those thoughts are detrimental, too, when she’s trapped in a darkness of her own making.

Seeing that look upon her, then, in the wake of the others parting and going their separate ways, does not surprise Eres. They are in a temple, after all, and Eres had expected that Serana would be uncomfortable. That is not even counting the problem of her blood on top of all of that, and Eres can only imagine what kind of thoughts must be running through her head.

The problem Eres faces now is that she is not sure how to approach it. Is it the temple that bothers Serana more, or the blood? Would asking her directly only make her state of mind worse than it already is?

In the strained silence that remains after the others leave, Eres approaches the table in the center of the room at which Serana stands. She pulls her bag from over her shoulders almost mechanically, going through the motions of cleaning the cut on her hand on autopilot. There is something she needs to say, here. Something she needs to do to bring Serana out of the funk she’s fallen into. At the same time, she does not want to press her, to push her too hard too quickly.

She settles for an open-ended question. That is the safest bet, she feels—she can allow Serana to tell her what she is comfortable with telling her, and no more. Perhaps, when they have left Skyhaven behind, Eres can get more out of her.

“Are you feeling alright?” She tries, and hopes that Serana will tell her. That Serana will be open with her. She keeps her gaze upon her arm, feigning attention, while watching Serana out of the corner of her eye. If there is one thing about the two of them that is similar, it is that both of them struggle with emotional vulnerability. Eres knows, for herself at least, that it is sometimes easier to speak when one feels like they are not being watched.

A long moment passes. A minute. Two. Serana says nothing.

At last, Eres looks at her, wondering if she had been heard—but the look upon Serana’s face pulls her up short. There is a distance in her eyes, now, a distance that Eres has seen a couple of times before, in the past. In the very recent past. It reminds her of the very look Serana had worn on their carriage ride to the Embassy, the very one that Eres had chosen not to press her on at the time.

Back then, it had been Serana’s hunger that had caused that. Or, so Eres assumed—that had been the only thing Serana herself mentioned, when they spoke of it. Hunger and—something more.

There is a moment, there, where Eres wonders where that might come from. Skyhaven is a weird place to be—to _feel_ that kind of way, so suddenly and without cause. For a moment, Eres almost forgets that with vampirism, feeding and sexuality are inherently linked. For a moment, she forgets that a hunger for her blood also often means a hunger for something more.

“I’m fine.” Serana says. Her voice is flat, unaffected, near empty of emotion. Her eyes are fixed upon Eres’ wrist, upon the blood that Eres washes from her hand.

For a moment, Eres wonders if she should have offered it. If perhaps, in this moment, it would have been kinder to allow Serana to take what had already been freely flowing from the wound—the blood was already there, after all, what could it have harmed? But Serana had said herself that feeding directly from her now would be too dangerous, too tempting. When a woman as stringent as Serana tells her that she doubts her ability to restrain herself, Eres makes it a point to take her at her word.

Eres looks away. She doesn’t want to press too hard on this subject. She already knows how Serana feels about this kind of thing, how embarrassed she’d been simply to ask, before. And that had been in a situation where neither of them had been aroused—which is not something that Eres can say is true for Serana right now.

She can’t say she knows, for sure. It is especially rare for Serana to act on her impulses, and in fact Eres can only remember once where it had even come close to such a thing. Not that she had necessarily disliked it of course, but Serana had yanked herself away as if burned, as if horrified by her own wanting—Eres did not want her to feel that way now. Or ever, for that matter.

But Eres knows that there is a blockage, there, and for a reason that she could never have held against her. Not that she would have, for any other reason—she has her own insecurities on that end, but in Serana’s case, she fears more for Serana’s wellbeing than her own.

“You don’t look fine,” is what she says at last, and even then she does not know if it had been the right thing to say. She hopes, in some way, that Serana will take it as an opening, that she will tell her how she feels, that they can talk about it.

Eres ties the bandage off on her wrist. She packs away the supplies. Perhaps now, with the worst of it cleaned up and the wound bandaged properly, Serana would not be so deeply affected by it. Perhaps now, Serana might be able to be open about it, without the scent of her blood to distract her.

For what it is worth, Eres sees the decision in Serana’s eyes before she makes it.

Eres cannot say she has ever been at the receiving end of a look like that. She has read about it, of course, as a young teenager—what feels like many years ago, now. Once upon a time, her friends had all pooled their allowances together to buy a seedy romance novel from an even seedier store in the lower city—and then, for the next week, they had proceeded to take turns reading it aloud while those listening would holler and hoot with laughter over the too-dramatic descriptions and the absurdly flowery language, a time wherein _petals_ and _blossoms_ had become a riotous joke of its own.

Eres had been just thirteen, then, too young for any of it to make much sense, however curious she may have been of such things at the time—but she had found such things ridiculous to the point of comedy. Surely, she’d thought then, the book had been an exaggeration, the kind of erotica that only the lonely wives of soldiers or spinsters could enjoy. You couldn’t _see_ the way someone wanted you, younger Eres had thought, and even if you could, it certainly wouldn’t be arousing. The boys’ leering at passing girls had always been something of a point of disgust. She had not been able to imagine having a look like that aimed at her and _wanting_ it.

That had been then. Eres had been too young to get it. And, there was a difference between the lecherous gaze of a teenage boy and the way an actual lover looks at you—Eres knows that, now, though she hadn’t before. There is a difference in the way a man looks at a woman he wants, and the way a woman does—Eres has known that all her life, she feels, and perhaps that is the reason for her preference. Eres has been on the receiving end of both, in the past, but though the looks of men sometimes repulsed her and the looks of women often flattered her—

None of that compares to the feeling that rises in her when Serana looks at her. When there is something in Serana that shifts, that snaps and changes in an instant, when hands grip her at the waist and pull her in.

There is a difference between reading about such a thing—a little lover’s rendezvous in an inopportune place, in such a way that her younger self would have rolled her eyes at such a thing, certain that _she_ would never find herself dead in that kind of situation. That she could never allow herself to be accosted in public, or in a place that was not specifically private—those things are for the _bedroom_ , her younger self would think, and these people just have no control, no restraint. Didn’t they know how uncouth they all were?

There is a difference between a hypothetical, and the real thing. In the hypothetical, she would have pulled away. In the hypothetical, she’d have discouraged it, told Serana this is not the place, not the time—they are on a mission, doesn’t she know? Can’t she keep herself together for a moment? What kind of person does such a thing when there are people wandering about who might see them, out in the open?

In the hypothetical, there is logic. Eres has always been logical, perhaps to a fault. Her mind works in rationalities, in things that make sense, in pragmatism. She does this because of that. To reach point C, one must first travel from point A to point B, and so on. There is a manner in such things, a rhythm, a policy, a _rule_. Everything has an order, everything has a place, everything has _reason_.

The problem with that line of thinking is what happens when all reason flies out the window. The problem with that kind of thinking is that one cannot _always_ be rational, no matter how much they might try. The problem with that kind of thinking is that Serana kisses her, pulls her close, and all manner of logic and thought flees her at once.

Eres does not often simply let herself _feel_. She takes things in. She files them away. She processes them when she has the time to unpack them. She has always been that way, since before she can remember, since her father had made having emotions feel like a crime in her own house. Being emotional was a _private affair_ , something she did while she was alone and isolated, in a place where she could not be judged for acting out of sorts.

Perhaps that is the reason it takes her so long to respond appropriately—appropriately in the way of, _this cannot happen here._ Appropriate in the way of, _stop letting yourself fall into this_. Appropriate in the way of, _our first time should not be on a table in a goddamn ancient temple._

Because there is a moment where the _feeling_ in her is totally okay with that. There is a moment where the heat takes over, where all she feels is that of her stomach swooping low, of not a want between her legs but a _need_. There is a moment where Serana lifts her onto that table and Eres allows it because she wants it, because she does not _think_ in that moment, she _feels_ , and what she feels then is that this is something she has wanted for months, this is something she has thought about for—for longer than she probably should have.

There is a moment where Serana’s hands clutch at her thighs and Eres wishes they would move higher.

Had Serana reached for her, then, had Serana touched her, then—Eres is not sure she would have refused it. Even there. Even in the open. Even on a bloody table in the middle of a bloody entrance chamber of a stupid ancient temple, possibly the least romantic setting Eres could have possibly thought of. She might not have said no. She might have just let it happen. She might have even _wanted_ it to happen.

But then she feels Serana’s mouth at her neck, and for a moment—yes, it does take her a moment to remember the danger of it. It does take her a moment to move past the feeling of it and remember that, somewhere inside her, there is reason, and logic, and understanding. And knowledge. Knowledge that a vampire with her mouth on her _neck_ , after she has bled in front of her, is not even remotely safe.

If Eres is honest with herself, there is a moment where she doesn’t actually care. There is a struggle within herself, a struggle between the part of her that wants it, regardless, and the part of her that knows that Serana would never forgive herself for losing control. There is the battle within her between her own desires and what she knows is best for the both of them.

Serana’s hips shift against her own and Eres knows this is where she has to stop it. This is where she has to draw the line, or she might never do it, and then they will both regret it, for one reason or another. Serana, likely for losing her battle against her own restraint—and Eres, for recognizing that Serana is struggling and doing nothing to stop it for her own selfish reasons.

Serana isn’t in her right mind, right now, and Eres knows it.

So she pushes her away, against the not-insignificant part of her that wants only to pull her closer, or to pull her into a darkened room nearby where they might have some modicum of privacy. There are ways, that part of her mind tells her, there are ways we could get away to a better place, to a better environment, but—no, she will not allow herself to listen to that. In fact, as Serana stumbles away from her and her mind begins to clear, she is glad that this has happened _here_ , and not somewhere where the thought of their surroundings might not have weighed on Eres’ mind.

She is not sure she would have pushed her away if they were behind closed doors. Perhaps she would have been able to reason with herself otherwise. Perhaps she would have let it go. Let it happen. Let it be.

But Serana stumbles away from her, and there is the look upon her face that Eres had feared seeing since the instant she knew that she would have to stop this short. The look of fear, of muted horror, of—of self blame and guilt, and so much inner conflict that it hurts to look at her. There is a dazedness about her, a lack of true focus, but Eres can see it roiling beneath her skin all the same. She fists her hands in Serana’s tunic before she can try to speed away from her, before she can let the guilt swallow her whole.

She will _not_ allow Serana to take this the wrong way. She will not let Serana believe she has done anything _wrong_ , here. If anything, this is Eres’ fault. And she will make sure that Serana knows it.

“You’re hungry.” Eres leads with that. She wants to say, _that is the only reason I stopped you._ She wants to say, _it_ _’s the blood I’m worried about, not anything else._ But she _is_ worried about other things, like Serana going too far before she is ready in the heat of a moment, only to regret it later. But that would be laying the blame on Serana, and that is the furthest thing from what she wants to do. She needs Serana to understand that _she_ understands, that she doesn’t blame her, that she doesn’t have any reason to feel guilty or to hate herself or—or anything Serana might internalize, with this.

Eres pulls in a deep breath. It helps to cool the fire raging beneath her skin. It helps to settle her mind. It feels as though the jigsaw of her mind resettles, pieces falling perfectly back into the places they had been before Serana jumbled them so thoroughly. She is alright. She is—well, she cannot lie and say she is not aroused, but she is _handling_ it. She is able to handle it.

Eres pushes Serana just enough away that she can hop off the table, stand on her own two feet. For a moment she is horrified by the feeling of moisture upon the backs of her thighs, soaking through the fabric of her leggings—before she remembers that there is a skylight, and it had been raining, and she had just been sat upon a very wet surface. Her cheeks heat all the same, just for the fact that she had actually considered it _possible_ for a moment before she’d remembered.

“As much as I wouldn’t mind normally,” Eres says carefully, through her own embarrassment, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to do this when you haven’t fed recently.”

There—that places the blame solely upon the _bloodlust_ , and nothing else. It’s not that she doesn’t want to, or that she wouldn’t if Serana asked, but right now, it would be dangerous. That’s all. That’s all there is to it. Serana doesn’t need to blame herself for that.

But Serana blinks. The movement is slow, and her eyes do not quite clear—but Eres does see the guilt roiling in them, the shame, she sees it all in the way that Serana looks at her as though she is afraid to be near her.

“ _Don_ _’t_ think you did anything I didn’t like.” Hell, if she’s being completely honest, she’d probably liked it a bit too much. There’s a little part of her that is almost embarrassed to look anyone in the eye after that, as if they’d all be able to tell that she apparently enjoys being manhandled by her vampire lover. How positively scandalous such a thing would be. How could she show her face to anyone if they knew? How could anyone take her seriously?

But Serana— _Serana_ needs to know. Eres needs to tell her. Eres needs her to understand.

She reaches for her, pulling her down by the collar of her cloak until Serana has no choice but to look her in the eyes, has no choice but to see just how very serious she is. How very much she means it. “You didn’t do anything I wouldn’t have wanted.”

Serana opens her mouth as if to argue. Eres can almost hear it now, how Serana would try to shift the blame onto herself, how she would try to take responsibility for everything that has just happened, how she would hold herself to such incredible standards that she could have no hope of meeting them. In the back of her mind, Eres almost considers that perhaps Auria might be able to talk some sense into Serana the way she’d talked sense into Eres—but then Auria would know things she should definitely _not_ know. A mortifying concept.

Eres shakes her head. “Not now.” She doesn’t want to hear Serana’s arguments, now. Not when Serana is still reeling, still unbalanced. Not when she’s still fragile. There is only one thing that she needs from Serana, and that is that she does not blame herself.

Just to send the point home further, Eres kisses her. It is not anywhere close to chaste—Eres kisses her so that Serana feels what she feels, so that Serana can _know_ that she wants it. Eres kisses her with the _want_ that burns deep inside her, in such a way that even Eres herself almost loses herself in it. It takes _effort_ to pull away from her, after, because there is so much of her that wants to stay.

“Any other time,” Eres manages. She might have been embarrassed to suggest such a thing, to be so open about it normally but—but this is for Serana’s sake. This is so that Serana does not shame herself for wanting what is perfectly natural. “But now isn’t a good time. Not here,” she says, and gestures around her—at the chamber they are in, specifically, but also the temple in general. She would not want their first time to be in a temple. Not now, and not ever. She doesn’t want anything that could conflate the worst memory of Serana’s life with a moment between them that should be beautiful and singular. When it _does_ happen, at last, Eres hopes it will be somewhere they can remember fondly in the future.

“And not while you’re already hungry,” she adds further. It is the hunger that is the biggest problem, currently. Eres assumes, from what she has been told, that the feeding would be part of it, somehow—so even if they were in a place that both of them would be comfortable with such a thing, it being so soon after Eres has already given blood would not be a good idea, regardless. “Go hunt, and come back to me.”

 _Come back to me_ , she says, because there is a part of her that fears that Serana will run. That she will hate herself for this and remove herself from the equation, if only in some misguided attempt to keep Eres safe from her. As if Eres would ever consider Serana an actual danger.

“I…” Serana does not look like she is able to even speak, for the guilt that racks her. For the shame of it. Even her words to now seemed to have had no real effect.

Nothing is getting through to her. Maybe nothing will, right now, given her history. But—but Eres has to try. She has to _try_ to make her understand, to help her feel at home with this, to help her _know_ that Eres does not blame her, for anything.

Even if it means saying it, before she had planned to. Not that she had had much of a plan to begin with, but right now is not the moment she had thought she would say it. But, she feels—perhaps right now is the _best_ moment for Serana to hear it. Maybe right now is the moment that Serana _needs_ to hear it, more than anything.

So she swallows down her embarrassment, her uncertainty, her misgivings, her doubts—she swallows down anything that could be interpreted as even remotely negative, so that she can say this and Serana can hear it and know that she means it, that she is not saying it just to say it. So that Serana knows that it is as real as it gets.

“I love you.”

Her heart hammers in her chest, harder now than it had even been before, when there was reason for it. She can’t even remember—has she _ever_ said those words out loud? To _anyone_? She can’t even remember saying it to _family_ , let alone anyone else. Is this really the first time she has said it? It feels like it might be. It feels like the words are foreign, like they’re not meant to be arranged in that order, like they’re not meant to come out of her mouth. They don’t sound right in her voice, in her ears, not because she does not love Serana, but because she has never actually _said it_ , even to herself, out loud.

Eres pushes past it. She must, for the moment. She focuses only on the stunned look upon Serana’s face. _Yes,_ she thinks. _I love you. Get used to it_. “So come back to me.” Eres will say those words a million times a day if it helps Serana to believe it.

Serana stammers out something that might have almost been a response, in another language. Eres sees the struggle in her eyes, in her expression, the very same struggle she herself is all too familiar with. It’s _hard_ , sometimes, putting one’s feelings into words. Eres does not hold it against her. If there is anyone in the world who understands Serana on that end, it would be Eres herself. They are one and the same, on that end.

So she does not wait for Serana to say it back. She doesn’t need to wait. She doesn’t need to even hear it, out loud, because she already knows it to be true. She doesn’t mind that Serana can’t speak of it aloud, just yet, because Eres had gone into this knowing that Serana would need help with things, that she would need work. That loving her would not be simple, and easy, and Eres would not have wanted it to be. Perhaps if Serana was simple, Eres may not have fallen as deeply as she had. Serana’s conflict is a part of who she is, it is a part of who Eres loves, and she would not have wished her to be magically fixed even if she could have. She wants to be the one to help Serana through it. To help her heal. To help her learn what love was, even if Eres does not know so much of it herself. They can discover it together.

“I know,” she says. She has said that before. More than once. She has said it, because she has seen it in Serana so often, the desire in her to confess it, to say it aloud, coupled with the inability to actually speak of it. So Eres says that she knows. She relieves the pressure. She helps her. She tells her, _I know_ , so that Serana knows that she knows, without her having to put it in words. Actions mean just as much as any words Serana could say, and Serana’s actions have always spoken volumes.

“Go hunt.” Eres repeats, and she cups Serana’s cheeks with her hands, and she looks her right in the eyes and says, “Go now, and come find me when you’re done, _vhenan_.”

The word, somehow, comes naturally to her. More and more, she is starting to remember more of the Bosmeri language from when she was a child. Still precious little memories of her actual mother, but the language itself—she remembers a bit, here and there. She remembers that word, specifically, though she’s not sure how she even knows it. She certainly hadn’t been old enough that such a word would have been common for her to say or even hear.

But it means something. And what it means is what Serana is to her. There is no equivalent for it in any other language Eres knows, and certainly not in Alessian.

More than that, the word cuts through the darkness in Serana’s mind, and Eres watches the confusion form on her face. She had known Serana would wonder about it. She had planned on that much. “What does that mean?” Serana asks her, as Eres had known that she would.

Eres smiles at her. She had known she would ask. “Come back, and I’ll tell you.” _Don_ _’t run away from me._ From this. If Serana wants to know what it means, she will have to come back to her.

So she hugs Serana, briefly, squeezes her around the shoulders. She kisses her again, one last time—though this time it is purposefully chaste, so that neither of them can get carried away with it. “Go on. I’m going to go find a room for us. And when you get back I’ll tell you what it means.” She considers not saying it, but—it does need to be said. “And we can talk about this.”

About _this_. Such a vague statement, but it is what it is. There is still so much they need to talk about. There is still so much about their relationship that is all too new and unknown. But as long as they are open with each other, Eres knows they will be fine. They can get through it. As long as they are open.

Serana does not speak, but she does nod—reluctantly, Eres thinks, but she nods all the same. In a moment, she is gone, and Eres is alone in the central chamber of Skyhaven, and she at last has a moment to breathe and allow herself to calm.

That had been too close. Eres had made a point of taking it as slow as Serana wanted to—but trying to do that when Serana’s impulses sometimes want to leap ahead several steps at once is more difficult than she’d imagined it would be.

Eres hears the sound of wood tapping against stone. She turns, and her mood darkens—Esbern, approaching her now, a look upon his face that speaks of his knowing. How long had he _been_ there?

“I wished to wait until you were done with your conversation.”

For a moment, she thinks Esbern is being a dick about it—but she sees nothing on his face that suggests he had seen what had happened just before. Even still… “If you’re here to criticize me—”

“No,” Esbern says mildly, stepping further into the room with his staff held in front of him more akin to a walking cane than a weapon. He leans against it when he stops, just a few short steps from the very table Serana had pushed her up against not moments before. Esbern looks at her with somber, yet surprisingly kind eyes. “I was not.”

The ire in her cools. She deflates a little, feeling tired, suddenly, though the blood in her veins still thrums with unspent energy. She can still feel her pulse at her neck, too, throbbing with the racing of her heart, and more than that—the ghost of the press of Serana’s fangs, brushing against her skin. It had been close, then. Far too close for comfort.

“What do you want, then?”

“Can’t an old man stop to chat?” He wonders aloud. When Eres just frowns back at him, he sobers, his expression softening. “In all my days,” he says quietly, “I had never believed a vampire capable of what she feels for you. I had never thought them as anything more than monsters, products of the evil deity who bore them upon this world.” He smiles, rueful and soft, breaking through her immediate defensiveness upon comparing Serana to _him_ , of all things. “She loves you, you know. Anyone could see it in her; the way she looks at you.”

“I know,” Eres repeats, because she does. Her heart still warms to hear that others can see it besides herself, but she does know it.

Esbern smile warms, too. “She looks at you like _you_ were the one who hung the stars in the sky.” The words make her flush, make heat rise to her cheeks—she knows, she does, but it’s different when a man like Esbern points it out, of all people.

“Young love,” he tells her with a sigh, and he steps close enough to her that he can reach to press a gentle hand around her arm, “can be an incredible, life-changing thing.” He says. “But it can also be a dangerous one, if you are not careful.”

Eres glares at him. “She won’t hurt me.” She’s not going to allow Esbern to speak poorly of her, especially not now, of all times. “She’s _not_ dangerous—”

“Who is to say I was referring to her?” Esbern asks. Eres’ mouth closes, her brow furrowing with confusion. “I have seen her with you, from time to time. She is more fragile than she appears at first glance.”

“I’m not going to hurt her, either.”

“So you think.” Esbern says. “But what do you think will happen, once Alduin is defeated?”

“…What do you mean by that?” Dread sinks low in her stomach, erasing the last of whatever heat Serana had built there and replacing it with ice. “What happens when he’s defeated?”

“You run out of dragons, of course.” Esbern chuckles when she stares at him, puzzled beyond means. “I assume, then, that the Greybeards never informed you of the side effects of absorbing such power from dragons.”

Eres’ heart skips a beat. She feels fear tingling at the back of her neck. “Is it going to kill me?” No one had told her that it would but—that would be just her luck, wouldn’t it?

At that, Esbern laughs. “Hardly. Quite the opposite, in fact.” When her frown only deepens, he explains, “Dragons are immortal, as you are well aware. They can be killed, of course, but they live longer than you could even dream of. That you, a mortal, have taken so much of their power within yourself…” Esbern smiles, then, and it is a wistful one. “Blades train their entire lives to serve the Dragonborn. We do this because you, as Dragonborn, will outlive generations of our warriors, even before one considers your elven longevity. That is one of many reasons Skyhaven was built—to house the generations of men and women who would live and die protecting you. Serving you. Ensuring that you met your eventual destiny—however long that would take.”

“So long as there are dragons for you to defeat, dragon souls for you to take into yourself,” Esbern continues, “you might extend your lifetime far beyond that any of us could imagine. You will outlive friends,” he says, “by my estimation. Family, too. But eventually…” His smile fades, and his eyes turn somber once more. “Eventually, that power will run out. Eventually, the last dragon will be felled, and there will be no more. What happens, then,” he asks, “when your mortality catches up with you at last?”

“I die,” Eres says plainly. That is the obvious answer. “Like anyone else would.” The concept of dragon souls extending her own life is news to her—the Greybeards had never mentioned it. But then again, there were past Dragonborns who had lived for an incredible length of time. Perhaps that was part of the reason their lives had been so long.

She’s not sure if she can wrap her mind around the concept of living _that_ long, of being functionally immortal until she, allegedly, runs out of dragons to siphon power from. Elves already lived long enough on their own. What would she do, when the people she loved faded away all around her? How many of her friends and family would she bury?

“And what will _she_ do,” Esbern says, his voice as gentle as she has ever heard it, “when you die?”

“I’ll…” Eres’ voice breaks, despite herself. She swallows, swallows past the sudden lump in her throat. She hears Serana, in the back of her mind. Hears the things she has said, right to her face— _I_ _’ll love you as long as I can, then. I don’t know what I would do if you died. I don’t know if I can just watch you waste away._

What _would_ Serana do, once she is gone?

“Consider it, Dragonborn.” Esbern pats her shoulder. “Consider what you will do when the time comes. True immortality is beyond even the best of us. But,” he says, and he catches her gaze with a look heavy with meaning, “perhaps it is not beyond _you_.”

“I—You mean,” what else could he mean? “You mean letting her turn me?” Letting her soul be in Molag Bal’s hands, if she died? She’s not even comfortable with _Serana_ being doomed to that fate if she died, let alone herself.

But Esbern only smiles, and there is a knowing in his eyes that she cannot name. There is _something_ , about Esbern in that moment, that does not quite feel like Esbern, himself.

“No,” he says simply, and his all-too-knowing smile widens, just the slightest bit. She swears she can see an impish little twinkle in his eye. “You will know,” he tells her. “When the time comes.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You will _know_ , my child,” he says again. “But remember: this is a decision only _you_ can make, and it does not come without its consequences. You will understand, when the time is right.”

“Esbern—”

Esbern blinks. He blinks, and the twinkle in his eyes is gone, and the smile on his lips has faded, and his brow furrows, confusion alighting in his eyes. “Hm?” He asks, looking somehow startled to see her. “Did you say something?”

“You—” But Esbern just looks at her. There is nothing of the strange knowing in him, of the somberness and gravity of his words. There is nothing but an old Blade and his staff, looking at her. “…Nevermind.”

Eres’ hand curls around the horn tied to her waist. It is cool to the touch. She does not know who it could have been. It does not sound like any god she has ever known, but—that had not been Esbern, speaking to her. She is certain of that. She just doesn’t know who else it might have been.

“Hmm…” Esbern looks around, a puzzled frown forming on his lips. “Odd—where is your fetching companion? I was starting to think you were attached at the hip.”

Eres flushes at the unintended reminder. Right. Serana. She still has to deal with that. She can think about—whatever _this_ was later. She has time.

Alduin’s defeat, she tells herself. She has until Alduin’s defeat to make her choice.

If only she knew what the hell that “choice” _was._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "Vhenan": Those of you who have played Dragon Age might already know what "vhenan" means. Those of you who haven't... ;)  
> I'm kidding, it means "heart", translated literally. In this fic that is also the direct translation of the word, but like with many things, a lot of its actual meaning is lost in translation - it has a much deeper cultural meaning that can't be easily put into words. 
> 
> 2\. I did wonder whether to do that Scene from just one POV, but in this case I do think it served well to show it from both - so you can see what both of them are thinking, and how they perceive the other through the same moment. This isn't going to happen every time there is a development, but in this specific case I did feel it was important to show both sides of the situation. Hence the long ass chapter. Thank morrowfest for planting that particular seed in my mind. :P 
> 
> 3\. Fun fact: the part where Eres remembers her friends reading erotica as a joke is half a reference to Critical Role and half a reference to something my friends and I actually did in highschool lol. We bought a Zane book—a rather infamous “urban” erotica author—and spent hours taking turns reading through it. It was fucking hilarious. Something about reading erotica out loud just makes it funny.


	11. For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter references child abuse, both mental/emotional and physical (NOT sexual). Please be cautious when reading if this is triggering for you. Please DM me if you would like a summary of the chapter instead of reading through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot shorter than recent ones but... Given what this chapter deals with, I felt that it was better to release it by itself rather than add more scenes that may detract from it.
> 
> Edited 06/09/2020: Fixed some serious wording issues that presented the scene in a different light than intended. Sorry about that. Thanks to morrowfest for pointing out. Hopefully it reads better now and closer to the atmosphere I was going for lol

Truth be told, Eres had almost not expected for Serana to return to Skyhaven that night, after what had happened between them. She had almost expected that she would sleep alone, wake alone, and leave for High Hrothgar alone—until such time that Serana saw fit to join her again, her mind newly settled.

Had that happened, Eres had already made up her mind that she would wait until they were somewhere more comfortable for the kind of discussion they needed to have. Perhaps she would have waited until they reached Rorikstead, or even as far as Riverwood, depending on how quickly they moved.

But, Eres had planned, she would wait until they were behind closed doors, in a safe place that was decidedly _not_ a temple, and they would talk. There was a _lot_ that they needed to talk about, and Eres is tired of delaying it—the sooner they sit down and talk over it, _really_ talk over it, the sooner the two of them can be on the same page, and know where the other stands.

What Eres had not expected was to be awakened in the middle of the night to the sensation of weight settling upon the bed, to the feeling of Serana coming to lay beside her. For a moment, with her mind fogged with sleep as it often is when she is woken unexpectedly, Eres wonders if she had somehow slept longer than a single night, if she had somehow fallen again into some strange state of unconsciousness for several days.

It is not until she hears the distant sounds of morning birds awakening outside, and the very slightest stream of light through the windows, that Eres realizes that it has not been several days, but merely several hours, and dawn has not yet broken.

“Sorry.” Serana mumbles to her, and she does not, as she normally would, reach for her to pull her close. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Eres means to respond but finds herself yawning instead. By her guess, she might have only slept a few short hours. Between worrying for Serana in general, and her newfound difficulty in sleeping without her near, it had taken her some time to fall asleep at all.

“It’s fine.” She says at last, stretching. Skyhaven’s beds were not the most comfortable, as old as they were, but they did the job well enough. “How did the hunt go?”

“Fine.”

Eres sighs. She sinks back into the sheets, and for a moment she considers reaching for Serana herself, but she does not yet feel like moving. Instead, she beckons, and when Serana hesitates, she scowls at her. “Come here.”

“I don’t want to make you—”

“Just shut up and come over here.”

Serana closes her mouth, and scoots marginally closer. Eres beckons her until she is close enough to touch, and then closer still, until Serana is at her hip and looking down at her, head braced on a hand. As if sensing that the world has been set to right again, Eres feels drowsy all over again, just for having her near. She might even fall asleep, if she blinked for too long.

Now’s not the time for that, though. She can sleep later. Eres forces herself to keep her eyes open, to not allow herself to fall too deeply into that comfort of Serana’s presence.

“We need to talk.” Serana’s hand lifts, fingers tracing at the design upon her choker, drawing Eres’ eyes to it. Eres has always thought it resembled _him_ far too much for her comfort. “I hate that thing, by the way.”

Serana’s hand pauses. “This?”

“It looks like him.” She does not have to say who. Serana’s fingers press against it, closing around the front of her throat as though hiding it may help Eres to forget it.

“It’s a clan thing,” Serana explains, as though somehow that makes it better. To Eres, that almost makes it worse.

“I don’t like it. You don’t belong to him.” Serana just looks at her, and there is such a look of profound helplessness in her eyes that it feels like Eres’ heart shatters in her chest. “You _don_ _’t_ , Serana. You’re your own person.”

“It doesn’t feel that way, sometimes.” Serana admits. She still does not move to remove the choker. Still, it stays, collared around her neck like a brand. If Eres was a more aggressive person, she might have ripped it off herself. She _hates_ to see it. She’s hated it since the day she met her. “I’m just—he made me this way, and I—”

In one swift movement, Eres rolls over, straddles her, and pulls Serana by her collar up into a sitting position, glaring at her. Serana stares at her like she expects to be slapped. Eres had not meant to scare her – she had only meant to bring them eye to eye. Her ire shifts almost instantly to guilt, and her hands on Serana’s collar loosens, her expression softening.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you, Serana. I just wanted to be able to see you - and I _need_ you to hear me when I tell you this.”

Serana relaxes. Marginally. Eres notes that she does not touch her, in any manner. She had _known_ it would be this way, after what happened, but there is part of her that wonders how much of that could be blamed on what had happened between them earlier, and what she had just done – scaring her, when she meant only to comfort her.

Eres would never hurt her, and she knows that Serana knows that. But right now, with Serana’s current state of mind, Eres’ attempt at bringing them closer had only seemed to push her further away. The guilt sinks lower in her stomach.

 _Gentle,_ she tells herself. _Be gentle._

“You are not him.” Eres starts with that. That is the most important part. That is the thing that Serana most needs to understand. They are nothing alike. “You’re nothing like him, no matter what he might want you to believe. I don’t—” she closes her mouth. Looks away. She tries, mentally, to find a way to say it that will not bring up bad memories for her. She has already done enough to put Serana on edge, but she does not know any other way to say it.

“I don’t have your history with him,” Eres says, as carefully as she is able. “I know,” she says, and she does not have to say _what_ she knows—they both know what she is referring to. She knows, as well as any, what Serana has been through. “I can’t claim to understand it. I can’t even claim to _pretend_ to understand it. I won’t try to act like I do. But—in my own dealings with him, I know what he’s like. I know how he gets into your head. How he twists things.”

If there is anything she understands, it is that. Eres had spent the past year and some with Molag Bal interfering with far too much of her life. And he had enjoyed it. He had enjoyed it, and he had made _sure_ that she knew it. She _gets_ that part of it, even if she can’t hope to understand the rest of it.

“But I know _you_ ,” Eres tells her quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “You’re not him. You’re nothing like him. And no matter what kind of—no matter what you _think_ about yourself that makes you think that you’re like him, take it from me: you’re not, and you never will be. What happened today—”

“What happened today _was_ him,” Serana snaps at her, and she pushes her away, pushes her off her, and then she is standing before Eres even sits up in bed. “That _was_ his influence over me. That was him. That was his—” Serana’s expression twists with disgust, with repulsion, with—with _fear_. “I’m not—I’m not like that. I don’t even know—I don’t _know_ what _happened_ , Eres. It was—it was one second, I was there, and you were there, and it was fine, and the next it was—I couldn’t think, I couldn’t _stop it_ , that was him and his power and his _nature_ , in _me—_ ”

“Serana,” Eres tries, but Serana is far beyond reason, right now.

“What could have happened if you didn’t stop me, if you didn’t—”

“ _Serana_!”

Serana’s mouth snaps closed, her eyes darting to hers—wild, and frantic, and not at all like the Serana she knows.

“Sit down.” Eres points - not to the bed beside her, but to a chair against the far wall. Distance. Maybe distance is what they need, right now. 

“I can’t just—”

 _“Sit down._ ” Eres repeats. She does not want to be harsh with her—she has seen already how far that will go, and making Serana feel as though she needs to close herself off _more_ is the exact opposite of what she wants. But she does need Serana to _listen—_ at least for a moment. Serana hesitates, shifting in place, and Eres raises her eyebrows pointedly. “Sit. Please.”

“I’m not a dog,” Serana mutters, even so, but she does sit, all the same, if petulantly. She sits, and she crosses her arms over her chest, and she does not look at all receptive to whatever might come out of Eres’ mouth.

That’s fine, Eres thinks. It’s fine if she doesn’t take it in just now, if that's what it comes to. The point is that she says it now, when it’s most needed, and Serana can ruminate over it until she is in the right mind to take it to heart. But this—she _cannot_ allow this to go on the way it is. She cannot let Serana spiral like this. And if that means she needs to be a bit more honest than she's ever been, if she has to be a bit more open than she's comfortable with, herself? She’ll do it, if that’s what it takes. She'll do whatever she can, if it means she can help Serana work through this. 

Eres faces her, crossing her legs, gathering the blankets in her lap, and for a long moment she is silent. She is silent, because she needs to find a way that she can say this that Serana will not immediately veto. She needs, also, to get past her own insecurities. She needs to break down that wall, if only for Serana’s sake. It doesn’t matter how uncomfortable it makes her. She’ll do it, for Serana’s sake.

“Okay.” Eres takes a breath. She runs a hand through her hair. One of her hands rubs at her knee. She feels antsy and uncomfortable and rather like she could jump out of bed and pace for hours for the anxiety buzzing under her skin. But she pushes past it. She must push past it.

“Okay?” Serana asks, her expression still as dark as before. “Eres, what—”

“Stop.” Eres holds up a hand. “First, just—stop. I understand that you’re upset, but I'm asking you to listen to me.” Serana settles back. Good—she had stopped it before Serana stopped listening to logic. That is a good thing.

“Before I start, I need to know: what do you _think_ happened today?” Eres asks. “And don’t go on a rant, just tell me, what is it you think happened?”

“It’s not what I _think_ ,” Serana scowls, though it seems aimed more at herself than at Eres. “It _is_ what happened. I nearly—I…” Her expression fractures, then, and Eres is not sure that she would not have started crying, had she been mortal. “I almost… I _assaulted_ you, Eres, I—”

Eres holds up her hand again. Serana’s mouth shuts, but she looks ready to burst at the seams.

“First of all,” Eres says, very pointedly, “no, you did not.” Serana’s mouth opens again, but Eres barrels forward before she can argue the point further. “ _Assault_ means non-consensual, Serana.”

“And you didn’t—”

“Answer me this,” Eres interrupts her quickly, before she can get started. “Do you think I’m helpless?”

Serana blinks in confusion. “What? No, of course not.”

“Do you think I’m weak? Or incapable of taking care of myself?”

“Obviously not. You know I don’t.”

“Then why,” Eres asks, “do you think I could not have done something about it if I didn’t want it? If it _was_ non-consensual, like you seem to think it was? I told you earlier. I have no problem with what you did. The only reason I stopped it is because it wasn’t the right time or place for it - not because I didn’t want it at all.”

“I… Well,” Eres sees the conflict, there. She sees it, in Serana’s eyes. She sees the logic warring with her preconception of what had happened between them. “You needed time to react, and I didn’t give you any.”

“Do you not remember the part where I kissed you back?”

Serana quiets.

“I wanted it.” Eres repeats, gently. “It was not non-consensual.” She will say that however many times it takes for Serana to understand it. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and you are not like him.”

“You don’t understand, Eres. Mother said—”

“Fuck your mother.” When Serana just stares back at her, looking like she doesn’t know whether she should be offended or not, Eres can’t quite bring herself to care in that moment. If Valerica is the reason Serana’s feeling like this—then _fuck her_. She couldn’t be more wrong, and Eres _will_ have words for her the next time they meet for putting that idea into Serana’s head. “Whatever she said to make you believe that you’re like him—fuck that. She’s wrong.”

“She _said_ ,” Serana continues, pointedly, “it’s in my nature to dominate, as it is for every vampire, and that’s what happened. I did…that, to you, and you letting it happen doesn’t mean that it’s not still _wrong_.”

Eres only barely resists the urge to slap herself in the face. She loves Serana, she does, but she can be so monumentally hard-headed at times.

“It’s not _domination_ to want someone, Serana. It’s not _wrong,_ it’s _natural._ It’s _natural_ for you to have desires, just the same as it’s natural for me to have them. Acting on them doesn’t make you a bad person, and it certainly doesn’t make you anything like him.”

Serana, however, buries her face in her hands. Eres only barely hears her mumbled words: “You don’t _get it_.”

“I _do_ get it,” Eres replies. “…I think,” she adds, belatedly, because she does _think_ that she knows what the problem is, but she cannot say she’s one hundred percent sure. She’s not actually sure if she’s really equipped to handle this, now, but—she’s in it now, and she can’t turn back.

Eres climbs off the bed, walks to her, and drops to her knees in front of her. Serana straightens in her seat, pulling back from her, and Eres, very carefully, folds her arms over Serana’s knees, and looks up at her. She searches Serana's face - her eyes, the set of her mouth - anything that might indicate that it is her touch she is uncomfortable with, and not the conversation itself. Serana does look anxious, but she does not push her away. Even so, Eres keeps her touch soft, ready to pull away at a moment's notice if she sees a change in her. 

“Alright,” she says, and she settles herself in for a long talk, if that is what must happen. Her knees might hurt in the morning, but if she is honest—she’s not entirely convinced Serana won’t just flee, if the conversation between them takes too dark a turn.

“Take me through this, then. Step by step. What do you think you did wrong?”

If Serana could blush, Eres thinks she might have. “Do we _have_ to do this?”

“I want to help you," Eres says. "I want us to be on the same page, here. So, tell me what exactly you think you did, and I will tell you how I felt about it, and maybe we can come to an understanding.”

There. That is a logical approach. Perhaps it is better to do it this way than to be cross with her. Eres is not proud that her first reaction had been defensiveness, even if that defensiveness had been on Serana’s behalf. She _hates_ to see Serana so hard on herself, and there had been part of her that had been _furious_ that Serana would even think that way in the first place, and maybe that part of her had leaked out a little too much.

That part of her had almost wished she could slap some sense into her, but that is no way to handle a situation like this. Serana is _fragile_ , right now, and a stern talking-to isn’t what’s best for her. A gentle approach may be the best thing she can do for her. It may be the only way she can get through to her at all. And if this doesn’t work, then—she will figure out some other way. She won’t rest, until Serana understands that she is not at fault, and that she is nothing like the monster who created her.

“Fine,” Serana says, though by the tone of her voice it’s clear she doesn’t think this will help at all. “I—I pushed you.”

“Pushed me as in…?” Eres asks. “Do you mean, in general, or into the table?”

Serana, very carefully, does not look at her. Eres does not believe there is anything that interesting on the ceiling, but she’ll allow it, here. If it helps. “Both.”

“Generally—I said before that you didn’t, but we’ll get to that.” Eres starts with the big thing first, but she cannot address this now. “As for the table—I didn’t mind.” Serana does glance at her, then, doubtfully, and Eres sends her a wry look in return. “I really didn’t mind. It was nice.”

“Pushing you into a table was _nice_?”

“It’s not the pushing into the table part, specifically.” Eres feels a little guilty for the amusement she feels but—this is an absolutely ridiculous conversation no matter how one looks at it. She can’t believe she has to convince her lover that she’s attracted to her. Only _her_ life would work out like this, wouldn’t it? “It’s you wanting me enough to do it that’s attractive to me.”

Serana’s expression wrinkles in such a way that Eres is not sure whether it’s disgust or just complete and utter bafflement. “That… doesn’t make sense.”

“It does.” Eres says, and then, belatedly, remembers the very thing that has gotten them here, and how very much Serana’s background likely made it impossible for her to see it from Eres’ perspective. “Not to you, maybe,” she clarifies. “But it does make sense, in a way.” Probably not the best starting point. Best to move on—they can tackle this part later, too. “What else?”

Again, Serana sighs, so loudly it seems performative. “I was—I wasn’t in my right mind. I was… aggressive, with you, and…” she trails off, looking away again, and does not look willing to continue.

“And what was aggressive about it?” Eres asks her. “You didn’t hurt me. You didn’t restrain me in any way. You weren’t violent. You weren’t _aggressive_ in any way. Initiation is not aggression, Serana.”

“I don’t—” Serana takes a breath. She lets it out. She looks at anything but Eres, and still—she can see such deep-seated self-deprecation in her, such anger at herself, frustration—whatever it is that Serana _wants_ to say to her, Eres is starting to get the feeling that she doesn’t know how.

“Okay.” Eres sits back on her heels. She pushes down her own insecurities, her own embarrassments. This isn’t about her. But she doesn’t know of any other way to make it clear to her. “Can I tell you how I felt, without you interrupting?”

“…I guess.”

“Okay.” It is Eres’ turn to take a breath, now, and though she wants to rush through it and get it all out and be done with it, she knows that it is important for Serana to hear every word of it.

“This is—kind of embarrassing, so bear with me.” Already, Serana looks confused. Already, it feels harder to speak of it aloud even with the words already bouncing around in her head. Even though she already knows what she needs to say, how she might explain it—it still feels insurmountable.

“I don’t mind you being like that,” Eres starts slowly. The words are in her head, but even so she is not sure if she can explain it well, and in a way that Serana will be receptive to. “You think of it as aggression, or domination—and I understand why you do. I get that.” She does. She gets why Serana would see that lack of control as a negative. She _gets it_. That doesn’t make it true.

“But for me—it’s not…” Eres looks down at her hands. She knows that she should look her in the eyes when she says this, but—this is something that she’s never admitted to anyone. She’s hardly even admitted it to _herself_. “It doesn’t feel that way to me. And—I know how this is going to sound, so just let me finish before you say anything.”

Eres hadn’t planned on this conversation steering in this direction. In all honesty, she is not sure she can say she had ever planned to tell Serana about this at all. But it may be the only way that Serana will understand her, that she will be able to see things from Eres’ eyes instead of her own—and if that means Eres has to push past her own mortification to do so, then she will do it. For her.

“I’m a people pleaser,” she admits. “There’s—there’s so much of what I do, all the time, for the sole purpose of helping people, for doing what other people want me to do. And people might think that I’m just—that I’m _good_ , that I’m a good person, and that’s why I do it, but it’s not. I mean—it’s a part of it. Part of it _is_ that I want to help people. But there is…”

Eres sees her father, scowling at her in her mind’s eye. She can almost hear him. Almost feel him bearing down on her, hand raised over his head.

“…There is just as much of me that does it because I don’t know how to say no. And—” she snaps her gaze up to Serana’s before the woman can speak, “I know how that sounds, here. That’s not what I mean, so let me finish.”

Serana is tense, now, tenser than before, but Eres had expected that. Hopefully, by the time she is done—Serana will understand what she means.

“It’s hard for me to say no, because I hate to disappoint people. It’s hard for me to say no, because—”

The last person she had told about this was Claude. The last person who had ever known anything about it was Claude. Now Serana will be the second. She may be the only other person Eres will ever tell.

“It’s hard for me, because my father never let me.” Eres admits. It feels like her hands might start shaking, so she clasps them together tight to keep it from starting. To keep it from showing. “My father was—he was overbearing, and controlling. Saying no to him wasn’t an option. I had to be perfect, or—”

A door, slamming shut. A deep, gnawing hunger. A belt in his hands. “Or I got punished.”

“When I was younger, he’d hit me.” She remembers the worst of them. She remembers the crack of the belt. She remembers the white-hot flare of pain. She remembers not being able to sit for hours after. She remembers flinching at every sudden movement. She remembers the fear that raised male voices used to strike in her—because they reminded her of him.

Claude was the only other person who knew. She’d never told anyone else. She’d never wanted to. It had felt like admitting a weakness. It had felt like a shameful secret. It had felt like they would blame her, too.

“When I got older, he stopped with that, but then he would just… lecture me for hours on end.” Eres remembers standing for so long her feet fell asleep. Staring at him, directly in the eyes, afraid to blink for fear that he would see it as disrespect. That he’d accuse her of rolling her eyes at him, and then he would just get angrier, and harsher, and…

Something in her chest squeezes tight around her heart. Remembering what it had been like, living under his thumb, always makes her feel this way. Always makes her feel like a weak, meek child all over again, no matter how long it’s been. No matter how long he’s been dead.

It was a lie that she hadn’t cried when he died. She did. But she’d cried out of _relief_. It was the first time she had felt free. It was the first time she had ever felt safe from him. And she had hated herself for that.

“I tried,” she tells Serana. “I spent my entire life trying to be good enough for him. Trying to follow all his rules. Trying to learn exactly how he wanted me to be, just—just to make it _stop_.” She had spent so long molding herself into his image of her that she had forgotten who she was. She had become a shell of herself—and in a way, she still is.

She still molds herself to what others need from her. She doesn’t know how to be any other way. People need things from her, and she rises to the occasion, and yet another mask slides into place. There is an Eres for every person she meets, she feels like—and there had been a time where she had lost _herself_ behind them. She had not been sure who the real _her_ was, anymore.

“He always found something to be mad about. He always found something wrong with me, or something I did that he didn’t like. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to please him, how much I tried to be what he wanted me to be. I was never good enough.”

“And my mother—” Eres shakes her head, laughing bitterly. “Growing up, it just felt like I wasn’t good enough for her, either. I wasn’t good enough for her to stay. I wasn’t good enough for my dad to stop—to stop being _him_ , all the time. Nothing I did was good enough. So,” she says, and she breathes deep, pushes back the pain and hurt that had risen up in her. This is for Serana. Not her. _Get to the point._

“So, I forgot how to say no. I forgot how to _not_ be what people wanted me to be. Fellburg needed a Lady. So I became one. The Vigilants needed a Keeper. So I became one.” That is the story of her life. Living for the sake of other people. Living for everyone else but herself. “The world needs a Dragonborn, so…” she shrugs helplessly. “Here I am.”

“Eres—”

“I’m saying this,” Eres tells her, “I’m telling you this so that you understand me. So that you—” Eres swallows, swallows past a lump in her throat that she does not remember growing. “So that you _get it_ —what it’s like for me. I’ve spent my entire life trying to be good enough. Just— _good enough_. Not great. Not amazing. Just _enough_.” She’s not going to cry, damn it. She’s _not_.

“You…” She might, actually. Fuck. “You make me feel like I’m _enough_. Like I’m _good enough_. Like I’m—like I’m _more_ than good enough, like I’m something you want because you want me, not because you want what I can do for you.” Eres dashes the tears from the corners of her eyes, angry at herself for even getting this emotional over it. This was supposed to be about _Serana_ , and look what she’s done.

“The point is,” she says at last, “is that when I say I _don_ _’t mind_ ,” she catches Serana’s gaze, and holds it fiercely, “I mean I _really_ don’t mind. You make me feel wanted, wanted for being _me_ , and maybe that’s selfish of me, and maybe that’s—maybe I shouldn’t like it, as much as I do, but I do.”

There. Hard part is almost over. Nail the point home.

“You’re sitting here, _worried_ because you think you were too aggressive with me, and I’m—” Eres actually laughs then, unable to wrap her mind around just how _ridiculous_ this all is, just how mistaken Serana is. “I’m sitting here, wishing you were like that more often. Because I _like_ it when I can tell that you want me. When you show it, instead of hiding it away because you’re afraid of acting on it. And I’m not holding that against you, Serana, I get it—I understand why it bothers you and I’m not saying you’re not entitled to feel that way, it’s just… I am probably the very last person on Nirn you would ever need to worry about that for.”

“So.” Eres claps her hands on Serana’s thighs, straightening. “That is what I want you to understand, from my end. I didn’t stop you because _I_ didn’t want it. I stopped you because I knew if it went any further, _you_ would feel guilty about it. Like you are right now. This is exactly why I stopped it before we got too carried away. That,” she adds, “and the fact that we were out in the open and anyone could have walked in on us.”

“Whenever we have our first time,” Eres says, and she stands until she can cup Serana’s cheeks in her hands, force her to look up at her. “Whenever that does happen - I don’t want it to be a spur of the moment thing. It’s not that there’s anything _wrong_ with being spontaneous like that, but—with you… I don’t want it to be a moment where your desires get the better of you and you act on impulse. I don’t want it to be something where you look back on it and you feel guilty for it, or like you’ve done something wrong. That’s why I stopped it when I did.”

“Whenever we do reach that point,” Eres tells her, “I want it to be something we are both ready for. That we both go into clearheaded, knowing what we both want. I want there to be no doubts about it. No guilt, or regrets. I want it to be something you’ll remember happily—not like this. Not being down on yourself because you think you went too far. I want it to be perfect, for you. And you’re not ready for it yet.”

Serana swallows. “What if I’m never _ready_?” She whispers. “What if I’m always just going to be—what if I’m always just like this? What if I never get better?”

Eres shrugs. “I love you.” It’s so much easier to say it now than it had been the first time. “If you’re never ready—if it turns out that you don’t think you can, or you don’t want to,” she shrugs again. “Then we don’t. It’s that simple.”

Serana does not look convinced. “What about you?”

Eres does not mean to laugh at her. Really, she doesn’t. But she’s been through such a whirlwind of emotions in the past half hour that she can’t help it.

“Sorry. Not funny.” She’s still chuckling. “Do you think I don’t know how to masturbate?” Serana sputters at that, and she laughs harder. “I’m sorry, it’s just—Serana, sex isn’t a _need_. It’s not like I would die without it. I would _like it_ , eventually—but if that’s something you’re not okay with, it’s not going to change the way I feel about you. I love you either way.”

When Serana closes her eyes and lets out a deep, long sigh, Eres knows—she’s done it. It had taken baring her heart in more ways than she’d ever expected to, but she’d done it. She’d gotten through to her, somehow.

“You’re too good for me,” Serana murmurs, even as she pulls her into a much-needed embrace.

At that, Eres laughs. “I literally just told you how I’m only helping people for my own benefit.”

Serana shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. You still help people.” She looks up at her. “You help _me_. More than you know.”

“I think I can guess, a little.” Eres brushes the hair from Serana’s eyes, all the same, charmed by the love she sees in them. They’ll get through this, together. Just like they’ve gotten through everything else. “Come to bed, _vhenan_. I don’t sleep well without you anymore.”

Serana, at last, stands. The heaviness, the weight upon her that Eres had sensed, seems to have lifted. She looks down at Eres with a soft, wistful smile. “You never told me what that meant.”

Eres takes her hand and places it over her chest. Serana looks at her, confusion written across her face—but Eres just smiles back at her.

“Heart,” Eres tells her. “It means my heart beats for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was... a doozy, huh? Couple things I want to make obvious here. 
> 
> 1\. Eres, her father, and her many masks: Eres, to this point, has only spoken of her father vaguely, but enough that everyone knows he wasn't a great guy. Valerica also, in a previous chapter, has referenced how Eres shapes herself into what other people expect of her. This is what Valerica was talking about. Eres is broken, in her own way, and she has her own problems that need to be worked through. The problem is that, until now, they have not been as visible as Serana's. That is unfortunately something that is common with adults who have had rough childhoods like Eres' - they become so good at pretending to be okay, because they have to be, that people never realize that something is wrong. Eres is still Eres, but she presents herself a certain way to people she knows, because that is what she believes they expect of her. Serana is the one person she is most "herself" with. 
> 
> 2\. Serana, her trauma, and sexuality: I don't know if any of my readers may be ace, but I do know that sex-repulsion can be a facet of asexuality, and I also know that Serana herself is sometimes headcanoned as being asexual. In my fic, she is not ace in that she does not experience sexual attraction or desire (obviously), but her trauma has made her view sex in a negative, fearful manner. Despite the fact that I do not plan on writing Serana as ace, I felt it was still important to address it as a perfectly valid possibility. There are plenty of people like Serana, with and without trauma, who are sex-repulsed and/or may just never want or desire sex with their partners. And those people deserve as much support and love as anyone else does. Sex is not the only factor of a relationship, and I hope that Eres' response to Serana makes that very clear. If Serana was an ace lesbian, Eres would love her anyways, and that would not affect their relationship at all. 
> 
> 3\. I know this was a very heavy chapter but.. hopefully the ending made up for it. :P


	12. Paradigm Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long. Had some trouble with motivation.

It feels different, somehow.

Somehow, it feels different to wake in Serana’s arms, after the conversation they had had the night before. It feels too much like every nerve in her body is painfully exposed, and yet, she cannot say that what she feels is pain, really. Perhaps there is a rawness about it, an uncomfortable openness about her that feels foreign.

Eres cannot remember the last time she had felt this way. She could not even have said Claude had known some of the things Serana knew, now, and once upon a time he had been the only person Eres had trusted with such things. With all the things she had buried so deeply inside her that she hoped they never saw the light of day again. With all the things she had pushed down and pushed away in the hopes that she might never have to confront them.

Last night had been for Serana’s comfort, to reassure her, to make things better for _her_ —but in doing so, Eres had exposed a part of herself that she is not sure she should have. It is not that she didn’t trust Serana, she does—it is more that there is a part of her that fears that _this_ side of her is not the one that Serana had fallen for. Would Serana still want her, knowing how much of herself she kept hidden away?

Did Serana love _her_ , or just the _idea_ of her that Eres herself had crafted?

Eres might never know the truth of that, and she is not sure there is anything that has ever scared her more. Not Molag Bal, not Coldharbour—none of that could compare to the thought that maybe, just maybe, what Serana loved was the fraudulent version of herself. The self that she is not sure she could so seamlessly slide into, anymore.

“Are you just going to stare at me all morning?” Serana’s eyes open, then, looking back at her, and the arms around her waist tighten just the slightest. Serana looks hazy in the way she does when they—or rather, _Eres_ has been sleeping—like she has been daydreaming for quite some time and only just now realized the world still exists outside her mind.

“Yes,” Eres admits, and she does just that. She stares at her, looks her in the eyes, tries to see the answers to the questions plaguing her mind.

There is a discomfort, inside her. A feeling not unlike that of nakedness, like she has been stripped bare in front of her and now Serana sees all there is that she has to offer.

She wonders, not for the first time, if it is enough. If _she_ is enough. No matter how wanted Serana makes her feel, there will always be doubts.

This morning, Eres has doubts in spades.

“Don’t.” Serana says, and Eres blinks.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t hide away again.” Serana reaches for her, brushing the hair from her eyes, and the tenderness in that one, simple movement feels almost like too much to bear.

“If we’re working on me,” Serana says, “then we’re working on you, too.”

Eres frowns at her. “I’m fine.”

“Stop,” Serana says. She does not say it harshly. There is understanding in her, compassion in her even now. “You don’t have to pretend like everything is fine when it isn’t. Not for me.”

She pulls Eres closer, until she is tucked against her shoulder, and Eres cannot help but to breathe deeply of her. There is a part of her that wishes she could stay here forever. There is a part of her that does not ever want to face what is waiting for her outside, in the world outside this bed, in this room, in this moment in time.

“I’m not doing anything,” Eres mumbles. She’s not, really. She’s just—she’s trying to reestablish a normal. She’s trying to remember what she had been before yesterday. _Who_ she had been, before yesterday.

“You don’t have to hide yourself with me,” is what Serana says, instead. Repeating what she had said earlier. Her voice lowers, softening ever further. “I’ve always just wanted to know you. The real you, behind all those walls you hide behind. Every time I feel like I’m getting close, every time I feel like we’ve made some kind of a breakthrough it’s—somehow I mess things up, or something happens and you’re just… right back to where we started. I’m not innocent of it either,” Serana admits. “We both have things we need to work on. Things we need to do better at.”

“Have you been thinking about this all night?” Eres asks, because it kind of sounds like she has. Serana seems so much more—centered, than she had the night before.

“Yes.” Serana answers. “Don’t change the subject.”

Eres sighs into her shoulder. “And what if you don’t like the real me?”

Because it is possible. The real her - the her that Serana claims to want to know, is weak and foolish and soft. The real her is a child in an adult’s world. The real her wants for things she can’t have. The real her - even she doesn’t really know what the _real_ her is like anymore. It’s been too long since she had to bury it.

“There are things about me—”

“I love everything about you,” Serana says plainly. “Even the parts of you that you might not like.” A pause, then. A hand rubs gently at her back, tracing along the length of her spine. “You could probably say the same about me, I guess. You like things about me I’m not too fond of. You…” And for the first time that morning, there is a hesitance in her words.

“You love _me_ ,” Serana breathes into her ear, sounding for all the world like that is the most unbelievable thing she has ever heard in her life. “Of all people. You love me. And the gods know I have bad parts, too. Doesn’t stop you. Won’t stop me.”

It’s way too early for a conversation this heavy.

“There are no bad parts about me.” Serana pulls back from her, looks her in the eyes. Eres can see the moment the joke actually lands, that she realizes Eres is having one over on her.

“And so humble, too,” Serana murmurs to her, and she kisses her all the same.

Gratitude swells in her, gratitude and love and warmth and so much _good_ that Eres can almost pretend the bad is not there. Serana knows her, knows her better than anyone, knows a deflection for what it is and _allows it_ when she needs it.

“I’m the most humble person there is,” Eres jokes, between kisses.

There is a lightness in her chest now, a happy warmth that she has only ever felt with Serana. There are some days when she wonders how long it will last. Where she wonders if, one day, Serana would leave too.

Today is not one of those days.

Today, Eres lets that warmth fill her, because she does not want to be sad, or doubtful, or negative in general. She wants to be in love. She wants to be in love with being in love.

“You shouldn’t be.” Serana says to her, very seriously. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Once upon a time she had not thought it possible, for her to find someone who loved her as Serana seems to. Once upon a time, she had not known that Serana could love her, too. Now, Eres cannot imagine a world without her. Cannot imagine _existing_ without her.

The world is still waiting for them - for _her,_ specifically. But at least for the moment, Serana is Eres’ world, and there is nothing more that matters to her. Just for a moment.

But as much as Eres might have liked to spend the rest of her life in that room with Serana, time does not stop simply because she wants it to.

She does not know how long they spend, wrapped in each other, but eventually, they rise to face the day at last. They don their armor, in more ways than one, and yet again, they open the doors to the outside world.

They break their fast upon the very same table. Eres takes her seat not so far from where Serana had pushed her against it. When Serana glances at her from across the table, looking very much as though she, too, remembers it and is trying very hard not to, Eres raises a brow at her and sends her a quick smirk. The look on Serana’s face almost makes her laugh out loud.

“You are going to High Hrothgar?” Inigo asks, at her right hand side.

“Hm?” Eres looks away from Serana at last. She supposes she can let her live. Now that everything is in the open, it’s a bit too tempting to flirt with her a bit more - if only because it might help Serana to realize that she wants her, too.

“You must return to High Hrothgar, yes?” Inigo asks her again. He glances between her and Serana, seeming to have sensed that something is going on between them, but he does not mention it. Only the tiniest of smiles flickers across his mouth, but it is gone almost before she notices it.

“Unfortunately,” Eres answers. She is not looking forward to the trip. The first time she had climbed those steps, she had thought that if she never climbed it again, it would be too soon. Now it seems like she must do it every other week.

“I have to go see what Arngeir might know about this Shout the Wall shows. If anyone might have a record of it, it would be them.”

“Inigo does not envy you, my friend.”

Eres blinks. “You’re not coming?”

At that, Inigo reaches up to scratch at the back of his head. “About that,” he says haltingly. “Inigo thought maybe he could stay here. Learn more about the Blades. They are the protectors for the Dragonborn, after all. That is what I would like to be.”

Eres looks to Delphine, but the woman only shrugs. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” She asks Inigo. “They said there wasn’t much left of them…”

“All the more reason for Inigo to be the first,” Inigo argues with a smile. “We can rebuild them here. Or,” he says, “Inigo can help. He would like to help. If you have need of Inigo at High Hrothgar, I will come, of course. But he also thinks that maybe he can be more use to you here, learning what he can.”

“Well, if that’s what you want…” She’s not going to tell him no. It’s unexpected, but it’s not as though she can say it would be a bad idea. From what she knows of Esbern and Delphine, at least, the two of them certainly seem capable enough.

She doesn’t know how much she likes the idea of Inigo deciding to be a glorified bodyguard, but—if this is something he feels like he needs to do, she’s not going to force him to do otherwise. Him becoming a Blade would be safer than anything he’s done for her so far - going up against Molag Bal, walking into Coldharbour…

“It is,” he assures her. Then he winks, with a saucy little grin. “And you can have some time alone with the wife.”

Eres chokes on her food. It takes several minutes for her to stop coughing. “W- _wife_?”

Inigo laughs all the while, slapping her back hard to help her.

“We’re not _married_ , Inigo.”

“Not _yet._ _”_

She’s going to pretend he didn’t say that. She’s going to pretend that the amulet resting against her chest doesn’t feel heavier than it ever has, in that moment.

 _Marriage_ —that was a _long_ way away. And that was an _if_. A big _if_. Eres isn’t even sure if Serana would want that kind of thing, or if—could vampires even _get_ married? Eres doesn’t even know if _she_ would want to marry. It’d certainly never been something she’d thought about much before.

 _Too soon,_ she thinks. It’s far too soon to be thinking about that. One step at a time. And they have a hell of a lot of steps to take before they get anywhere near that.

Right now, Eres needs to focus on getting to High Hrothgar - not daydreams about whether or not she’d ever want to be married in the future. What a silly thing to think about. She has bigger concerns. Far bigger. Inigo had just been messing with her, that’s all. He liked to get under their skin. That’s nothing new.

Once they are on the road again, Eres does not mention it. Neither does Serana.

Somehow, during their entire trip back east to High Hrothgar, cutting again through the pass near Helgen and on to Ivarstead and back up those damnable steps once more, it is not mentioned even once.

The first day, Eres’ mind had drifted back to that comment every time that her amulet had shifted against her skin. By the time they arrive at High Hrothgar, the comment is so far in the back of her mind that it no longer registers.

High Hrothgar is the same as she remembered it. It is easier for Serana to come inside, this time, with only a fraction of the trepidation compared to before. She is still not comfortable inside, by any means, but Eres holds her hand as she climbs the steps, and stays with her until they have reached the private wing once more. Serana again assures her that she will be fine for her absence for the time being, and Eres again leaves to find Arngeir.

They cannot be done with High Hrothgar soon enough, Eres thinks. The less times she will have to bring Serana here, no matter how much the woman might act as though she is fine with it, the better.

It takes a fair amount of wandering to find Arngeir - for such a small temple, there were plenty of nooks and crannies where the Greybeards often did their meditations. But she does find him, at last, and he looks upon her as though he had expected her return.

“Dragonborn.” He greets her. “Back so soon?”

There has always been something about Arngeir that unsettled her, just a bit. In this moment, Eres decides that it must be the way that it sometimes seems as though Arngeir knows too much. As though he knows things he should not know, that he could never know, and yet knows them all the same. It is something about the way he looks at her, as though he knows what will come out of her mouth before she says it.

Eres does not see the point in beating around the bush. “I need to learn the Shout used to defeat Alduin. I’m assuming you must know something of it?”

Arngeir’s expression shutters. “Where did you learn of that?” He demands, his brows meeting sharply. “Have the Blades been feeding you such nonsense?”

“Nonsense?” Eres’ brow furrows. “It was recorded on Alduin’s Wall.”

Arngeir tuts. “Of course. They specialize in meddling in matters they barely understand. Their reckless arrogance knows no bounds. They have always sought to turn the Dragonborn from the path of wisdom. Have you learned nothing from us?” Arngeir asks her, standing now from his meditative kneel to look down at her. “Would you simply be a tool in the hands of the Blades, to be used for their own purposes?”

“The Blades just want to defeat Alduin,” Eres replies, and she is not sure why Arngeir is suddenly so incensed. Is this not the very purpose he had been priming her for, himself? “Don’t _you_?”

“What I want is irrelevant.” Arngeir says. “This Shout was used once before, was it not? And here we are again. Have you considered that Alduin was not meant to be defeated? Those who overthrew him in ancient times only postponed the day of reckoning - they did not stop it. Perhaps,” he says, “it cannot be stopped at all.”

“Then why the fuck am I here at all?” Eres feels irritation building beneath her skin. What the hell was the point of _any_ of this if Arngeir had never meant for her to face Alduin?

Wasn’t that the whole idea of her _being_ Dragonborn, that she would fulfill the prophecy and face Alduin and save the world? Was that not the very prophecy the Greybeards had been waiting for? Why now, then, had Arngeir so suddenly changed direction?

“If it’s not to fight Alduin, what is the _point_ of me being Dragonborn?”

“The point,” Arngeir says, “is to learn from your betters. From those who came before you - such as the great Talos, whose namesake you now also bear.” Arngeir folds his hands within his robes.

“I understand that you may wish to save this world - for some time, I also believed it possible. But the more I have studied our past, the more clear it has become. Alduin cannot _be_ defeated, any more than you could defeat any God. The reckoning he brings can only be delayed, the burden pushed to those who come after us. Perhaps,” he says, “it is better that we accept our fates. If the world is meant to end, then so be it. Let it end, and be reborn—and those who come after us will not have the threat of Alduin’s inevitable return hanging over their heads.”

“Arngeir—that’s _insane_. If the world ends, there won’t be any _rebirth_. That’s _it_.” Just _what_ has gotten into him? “You can’t just— _unilaterally_ decide to let the world burn. If you won’t help me, then—”

“I will not,” Arngeir confirms. “Not until you return to the path of wisdom. Not until you remember that the Blades are _not_ those you should trust so easily.”

“Is _that_ what this is about? The Blades?” Eres scoffs at him. “Whatever your issue with them, you can’t condemn the world because of some disagreement you’ve had with them. There are _millions_ of people out there who will die if we don’t do something. And—”

Eres feels it beneath her feet, the quaking of stone, the rumble, just instants before she hears the whisper of the other monks as they approach.

_“Arngeir. Rek los Dovahkiin, Strundu’ul. Rek fen tinvaak Paarthurnax.”_

Eres looks to Arngeir, frowning. “Who is Paarthurnax?” She knows what they said - She is Dragonborn, Stormcrown, she will speak with Paarthurnax—but she has never heard that name before.

Arngeir’s lips press together, but the monks do not falter. When he turns again to Eres, there is resignation written across his features - and perhaps just the slightest bit of remorse.

“Forgive me,” he says quietly. “I was… intemperate. I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgment. Master Einarth has… reminded me of my duty. The decision whether or not to help you is not mine to make. I cannot teach this Shout to you,” he says. “Because I do not know it. It is called _Dragonrend,_ but its Words of Power have been lost to us.”

“We do not regret this loss. Dragonrend holds no place within the Way of the Voice.”

Was _that_ why he had reacted the way he had? “Why are you so against this Dragonrend?”

“It was created by those who had lived under the unimaginable cruelty of Alduin’s Dragon Cult. Their whole lives were consumed with hatred for dragons, and they poured all their anger and hatred into this Shout. When you learn a Shout, you take it into your very being. In a sense, you _become_ the Shout. In order to learn and use this Shout, you will be taking this evil into yourself. I have told you once before, Dragonborn - you cannot rely always on such negative emotions to fuel your power. Eventually, there will be a cost, and it may be one that is too steep for you to bear.”

“I don’t have a choice,” she tells him. “It’s either that, or lay down and die. And I’ve never been the type to do that.” She had almost done so, once. She has never wanted to do so again. She has too much to live for, now. And that was not counting how many millions of people’s lives depended on her, now. Even if the cost _was_ high for Dragonrend—it would be a small price to pay, in comparison to the lives of every person on Nirn. “How is it that you _don_ _’t_ know this Shout, if it was so monumental?”

Arngeir’s expression twists. His distaste for the Shout is plain. “The knowledge of _Dragonrend_ was lost in the time before history began. Perhaps only its creators ever knew it. But I am not the one to speak of it to you.”

“Then what?” She asks him. “Does this Paarthurnax know this Shout? Or where I might find it?”

Arngeir looks very much like he would like to say no. But instead, he sighs, and says, “Only he may answer the questions you have. He is the master of our order, and the only one of us who is equipped to answer you. Should he choose to do so.”

“Why haven’t I met him, then?” Eres wonders. She’d thought, this whole time, that _Arngeir_ was the leader of the Greybeards. Arngeir had even known of Dragonrend, before now, and had not once even mentioned its existence. Just how much has he been hiding from her?

“He lives in seclusion on the very peak of the mountain. He speaks to us very rarely, and never to outsiders. Being allowed to see him is a great privilege.”

 _Sure it is_ , Eres thinks. So great a privilege that even the prophesied Dragonborn would be denied it, until now.

“Where on the mountain is he, at the peak? How can I find him? Just—start climbing?” She’s _not_ thrilled about that idea. Climbing _higher_ on this damn mountain is just about the last thing she ever wanted to do.

“Only those whose Voice is strong can find the path. We will teach you a Shout to open the way to Paarthurnax.”

Eres peers out of one of the windows in the wall. It is still early in the day. If she leaves _now_ , she may be able to make it to the peak and back before nightfall. Sooner still, if she brings Serana with her.

“Alright,” she says to him. “Can you teach me this now? Then Serana and I can go right away—”

Arngeir’s brows snap together. _“Absolutely_ not! She is not permitted to see him.”

“She’s _with me_ ,” Eres retorts, scowling at him. “I’m not leaving her here alone.”

“She will be safe here,” Arngeir assures her. “But she cannot climb the mountain with you. As Dragonborn, this is a journey you must make alone. Paarthurnax would not take kindly to her presence there, and if it is the _Dragonrend_ shout you are after—you should take care not to upset him, if you truly wish for him to help you.”

He must see the conflict on her face, for his expression softens. “I understand your misgivings. I will ensure everyone, including myself, do not approach the private wing for any reason in your absence. She will be left alone, and unbothered. But the climb,” he says, “is for you to make _alone_.”

As they have before, the monks gift her with their knowledge of the Words of Power that will help her reach Paarthurnax— _Lok Vah Koor._ When they have finished, Arngeir leads her to the open courtyard, and has her practice the Shout until she can make the very wind calm around her.

“Now,” he says, when he is satisfied, “you may go.” He shakes his head a little, then. “It will never stop surprising me just how naturally this comes to you.”

When she turns to leave, he calls after her. “Where are you going, Dragonborn? The peak is _that_ way.” He points, past the lone tower in the rear of the temple, up a snowy incline that Eres cannot see the top of. It is as though there is an isolated blizzard upon that path, pounding the incline with snow and wind and ice.

“I have to tell Serana where I’m going.”

“No,” he says patiently, as though she is a child. “It will take some time to reach the peak. You should leave now, while you still have the advantage of daylight.”

Eres looks up towards the sun. It’s barely past midday. “It’s not going to take that long.” She leaves, before he can try to convince her otherwise. She’s not just going to vanish for hours on end without letting Serana know where she’ll be.

* * *

_“Absolutely_ not,” Serana says, when she tells her, sounding quite similar to Arngeir not so long ago. She looks at Eres like she’s grown a second head in the couple of hours she had been away. “I’m not letting you go up there alone. It could be dangerous. It _will_ be dangerous,” she amends. “Climbing up this far is bad enough, but to the _peak_?”

Eres sighs. “Arngeir says you can’t come. He said Paarthurnax wouldn’t be happy if you went up there with me. And I _need_ him to teach me this Shout.” Serana’s face twists. Eres imagines she isn’t fond of the idea of spending longer here by herself than she needs to. “If you want, you could wait for me in Ivarstead - I’ll just come down when I’m done.”

“And what if something happens to you up there, Eres? Be sensible about this.”

“I _am_ ,” she says. “Arngeir said—”

“ _Fuck_ Arngeir. Since when have you given a shit what other people tell you to do?”

Serana has a point, she has to admit. Not so long ago, she had essentially told Arngeir to fuck off, herself. Why is she listening to him now?

“And what if Paarthurnax decides not to help me, because I broke his rules?”

“Are they even _his_ rules to begin with?” Serana asks, doubtful. “I’m sure you can convince him, regardless. _You_ _’re_ the Dragonborn, not Arngeir or any of these old monks. I’m sure he’ll help you regardless. You just might have to soothe his ego a bit, first.”

“I’ve never been very good at soothing egos.” Eres says, but she does not fight it when Serana pulls her cloak over her shoulders, helping to gather the rest of their things together for the climb. “You’re not going to stay behind no matter what I say, are you?”

“Not even,” Serana confirms. “I’ll follow you up there on my own if I have to. Don’t get me wrong,” she says quickly. “I trust _you_. It’s _them_ I don’t trust.”

Serana approaches her, then, leaning down to kiss her quickly. Eres very carefully does not allow herself to fall too deeply into it - if she lets Serana distract her now, they might not leave in time to reach the peak tonight at all. Serana smiles softly at her when she pulls away, and there is a part of her that wants to let the peak wait for tomorrow, anyways, damn the consequences.

“I just want you to be safe.” Eres could not have held that against her if she tried.

“I hope he understands, then.”

“If he doesn’t, we’ll make him understand.” Serana promises. “We do this together, Eres.”

Eres takes a breath, and nods.

 _Together._ They will face Paarthurnax together, and everything that may come after that. She will always have Serana by her side. That is the one thing she can always count on.

Eres pulls her own cloak tightly around her shoulders, and quickly, they make their way out of the private wing and out the back doors of the temple to exit into the courtyard just behind it. Past the tower, Eres can see the same snowy incline from before, as well as the whiteout conditions just beyond it.

“Oh, _wonderful_ ,” Serana drawls, when she sees it. “This is going to be fun.”

“The Shout they taught me should help to clear the way.” Not that Eres is particularly keen on using it - shouting so often makes her voice hoarse for days on end. She imagines the combination of the high altitude and the weather conditions will only make her worse off than usual.

It is—strange, when they approach the whiteout. It is as though there is an invisible line, where on one side, the weather is completely clear, idyllic even, if bitingly cold. On the other, it is as though the mountain itself blocks any approach. Eres almost sticks her hand out to touch it, but Serana snatches her hand right out of the air, tearing it away from the wall of wind and snow before them.

When she looks at Serana, frowning, the woman produces a long spike of ice in one hand, and instead of flinging it as she might normally do, she instead grabs the wide end of it and pushes it across that invisible line. In an instant, the other end of the icicle is sheared off as though sliced with a knife.

Eres pales, stomach near dropping through her feet.

“That’s why you don’t touch these things with your bare hands,” Serana says, sending her a dark look. “I hope that Shout of yours works.”

Eres feels a little weaker in the legs. If Serana hadn’t stopped her, she might have just lost her hand to that. She’s _got_ to start being more careful about these things. To Serana, she nods her understanding, and pulls in a deep breath. The Shout bursts from her lungs as any other, and for a moment, she thinks it has failed—but then the wall of ice and snow and wind simply… vanishes. As if it had never been there at all.

Eres rubs at the front of her throat. Already, between the practice she’d done and now this, she feels like she might just lose her voice by the time she reaches the top.

“Let’s hurry.” Eres starts up the incline at a brisk march, Serana at her heels. “I don’t know how long this is going to last.”

“We’d better hope it lasts long enough for us to get up there.” Serana mutters. “Or that it doesn’t start up again all at once, or—”

She doesn’t have to say what will happen if it doesn’t. Both of them would be eviscerated, if what had happened to the icicle was any indication. Eres moves faster.

Perhaps Eres ends up being too paranoid, on the way up. Every time it feels like the wind is starting to pick up, she shouts again to clear it before they can be surprised by it. Hours pass in that way, and by the time Eres sees what almost looks like a word wall up ahead of them, she is more glad than ever that she had brought Serana with her. Serana, who warms the frozen water within her canteen so that she does not rip her throat apart on the way up.

Had Eres been alone, she is not sure she would have been able to hold the focus enough to call fire into her hands for such a thing. Auria’s teachings still do not come naturally to her, and having a migraine on top of the pain in her throat would not have been her favorite experience.

“That’s a Word Wall, isn’t it?” Serana asks, and she does not look tired. Slightly concerned, maybe, when she looks at Eres, but she does not look remotely as though the trip has tired her.

Eres cannot say the same. The climb up _this_ part of the mountain did not even have the half-buried steps the trip up to High Hrothgar did, and each step had meant sinking into the fresh snow upon the mountainside, then half-clambering out of it again. She doesn’t even want to _think_ about climbing back down, now, and from the position of the sun, she can only guess that they have just a few more hours of daylight remaining.

“Looks like it,” Eres manages. She stops where she stands, feeling short of breath. The air is even thinner here than at the temple, and she hasn’t felt so out of sorts since that one night in the mansion. It is an unwelcome reminder of perhaps one of the most harrowing nights of her life. That she can remember, anyways.

Eres looks down at her feet, buried in snow to almost mid-calf, and contemplates how much she might have liked to just sit down where she stood, and never take another step. But they have come this far, and Eres would bet whoever Paarthurnax is would be at this wall. She takes just another moment to catch her breath, and then she is moving again, trudging up what she hopes is the final incline she will have to climb.

“Hmm…” Serana moves ahead of her, walking much more easily in the snow than Eres can. She does not go far, but enough that she approaches the Word Wall minutes before Eres does. “There’s nothing here,” she calls back, and she is making her way back to her before Eres has closed the distance. She looks cross. “If those damn monks lied to you—”

“They… better not’ve,” Eres mutters, between shallow breaths. Finally, she reaches the top of that incline, and at last the ground plateaus. Walking on flat ground suddenly, snowy or not, feels somehow awkward and ungainly after so many hours of walking up the side of a mountain. It takes several steps before her knees stop locking wherever she steps.

For a brief moment, she bends over, hunched over with hands on her knees, lamenting the fact that she is not nearly as in shape as she should be. Coldharbour had taken so much out of her, and, though she hates to admit it—Isran had been right. She hadn’t recovered to even half of what she had been prior to that, and now it’s coming back to haunt her.

“Are you okay?” Serana asks, helping her to stand up straight.

“Just tired.” Eres could have laid down right there and then if she didn’t have hypothermia to worry about. Even _with_ hypothermia to worry about, it’s still not an entirely unattractive idea. Which means she’s probably even worse off than she feels.

Eres pushes through it, all the same, approaching the snow-covered wall. She brushes her hands over its surface, clearing the snow from the jagged lines upon it—but the snow has been caked into the divots, and it is impossible for her to read what is written there.

Then she hears it—a roar, distant upon the wind. A roar that sounds all too familiar. At once, she reaches for her bow, nocks an arrow and holds it at the ready, ears straining for the sound of wings upon the air.

 _“Stay your weapons.”_ Comes the guttural, deep growl of a dragon from somewhere above them. Eres spins, drawing back—and the ground beneath her feet trembles as the dragon lands _far_ too close for her comfort.

“Eres—” Serana calls, magic held at the ready in both hands.

“Wait.” Eres releases her drawn bow, slowly. The dragon does not move to attack them. She does not feel any threat from it at all.

 _“Drem Yol Lok_ ,” the dragon breathes at her. _“Greetings, wunduniik.”_ Traveler. _“I am Paarthurnax.”_

“ _You_ _’re_ Paarthurnax?” Serana gapes at him, magic fading from her fingertips more from shock than anything else.

Eres echoes that sentiment—but after Kahkaankrein, she supposes anything is possible. Perhaps it even makes sense, now, Arngeir’s sudden defensiveness regarding a Shout that had been made from hatred of dragonkind.

 _“What brings you to my mountain?”_ Paarthurnax lowers his head to be level with her, in a way that is so similar to Kahkaankrein that Eres immediately feels a sense of—of camaraderie, almost. Of understanding.

“ _You_ _’re_ the master of the Greybeards?” Eres asks him.

 _“They see me as master. Wuth, onik—old and wise. It is true I am old, at least.”_ Eres hides a small smile—that had almost sounded like a joke.

 _“Tell me,”_ the dragon says, _“why do you come here, volaan? Why do you intrude on my meditation?”_ He sniffs, suddenly, so much so that Eres can feel the air he breathes pulling at her clothes. He grumbles low in his belly, exhaling. _“Dovahkiin_ ,” he murmurs. _“I see.”_

She supposes Serana must have been right—she must smell like a dragon, somehow, for Paarthurnax to recognize it in such a way. “I need to learn the Dragonrend shout. Do you know it? Can you teach me?”

“ _Drem. Patience. There are formalities that must be observed, at the first meeting of two of the dov._ _”_ Her brow furrows. Durnehviir had never said anything about any traditional greeting of any kind. _“By long tradition, the elder speaks first. Hear my Thu’um. Feel it in your bones. Match it, if you are truly Dovahkiin.”_

Paarthurnax turns, then, angling his head past her, towards the Wall—and from his mouth bursts a super-heated blast of flames not unlike what Durnehviir had _also_ done for her, once upon a time. But then, it had been for the purpose of lighting their campfire in the frozen wastes of the Forgotten Vale, had it not? Or had it served another purpose?

 _“Why do you intrude here, if not for tinvaak? I have spoken,”_ he says, and inclines his head towards the Wall. _“The Rotmulaag awaits.”_

Eres blinks, turning—and there is the Wall just as it had been before, only, now the Word carved into its surface has been revealed, the snow-pack that had obscured it evaporated in the wake of Paarthurnax’s fiery breath.

 _“A gift, Dovahkiin.”_ Paarthurnax says to her. _“ **Yol**. Understand Fire as the dov do._ _”_ When she feels him gift the understanding of the words to her, she wonders, not for the first time, if she could also teach people to use the _Thu_ _’um_ in the way the Greybeards and this Paarthurnax had taught her. Is this something she could also learn, sometime far into the future when she has mastered such a thing?

_“Now, show me what you can do. Greet me not as Elf, but as dovah.”_

Serana, wisely, stands aside. Eres, for what feels like the hundredth time just the day, allows the shout to fill her from the inside out, allows it to burst forth from her, and she watches fire explode from her mouth and bathe the ground in flames before her. The snow melts where the flame touches it, leaving a divot in the snow pack leading from herself to where Paarthurnax stands.

_“Aah… yes. Sossedov los mul. The dragonblood runs strong in you. It is long since I had the pleasure of speech with one of my own kind.”_

Dragons, Eres has decided, are _weird_. Only a dragon would like having fire spit at them.

“ _So. You have made your way here, to me.”_ Paarthurnax settles himself in the snow, now, relaxing in her presence. The hulk of his body, even lying down as he is, blocks the worst of the wind’s bite. _“No easy task for a joor. Even for one of the Dovah Sos. Dragonblood. What was it you wish to ask of me?_ _”_

“Dragonrend - can you teach me it?”

_“I have expected you. Prodah. You would not come all this way for tinvaak with an old Dovah. You seek your weapon against Alduin.”_

Eres crosses her arms over her chest, and only partly due to the cold. If she had thought to bring wood and tinder with her, she might have used _Yol_ to start a fire to keep her warm. She hopes this meeting won’t take too long.

“The Greybeards didn’t even want me to come here. Why?”

 _“They are very protective of me. Bahlaan fahdonne. But I do not know the Thu’um you seek. Krosis. It cannot be known to me. Your kind - **joorre** \- mortals, created it as a weapon against the dov. Our hardimme, our minds cannot even comprehend its concepts._ _”_

Eres sags where she stands, and very nearly lets herself fall to her knees just before him. If _Paarthurnax_ doesn’t know it, cannot teach it to her—then what chance does she have of defeating Alduin? Had Arngeir been right? Was there nothing she could do against him?

“There has to be _something_ ,” she says to him, desperation coloring her voice. What happened to Fellburg could _not_ be allowed to happen to all of Skyrim. She had to do _something_ to stop it. “Isn’t there some other way I can learn it?”

 _“Drem,”_ Paarthurnax says to her. Again. She can only have so much patience when the world is at stake. _“All in good time. First, a question for you. Why do you wish to learn this Thu’um?”_

“Why else?” Eres retorts, a bit surprised he’d even asked. “You said it yourself - I came to you because I need to learn it to defeat Alduin. I need to stop him.”

 _“Yes. Alduin… zeymah. Elder brother. Gifted, grasping and troublesome as is so often the case with firstborn. But why? Why must **you** stop Alduin?_ _”_

“There’s no one else who can.” Paarthurnax only tilts his head at her, almost as though he is curious. Eres frowns. “The prophecy says only the Dragonborn can stop him.”

 _“True,”_ Paarthurnax allows. _“But qostiid—prophecy—tells what **may** be,_ _”_ he says. _“Not what **should** be. Qostiid sahlo aak._ _” Prophecy is a weak guide,_ Eres hears the meaning of his words in her mind, as clear to her as though he had spoken her own language.

 _“Just because you **can** do a thing, does not always mean that you should. Do you have no better reason for acting than destiny? Are you nothing more than a plaything of dez - of fate?_ _”_

Eres laughs. She does not mean to, truly, but she can’t help the bark of bitter laughter that escapes her. What has she been since she came to Skyrim _except_ a plaything of fate? A plaything of the Divines, or—or of Molag Bal, at the very least? And then there was everything that had happened in Coldharbour, and Shezarr, and now her calling as Dragonborn - it feels, sometimes, that there is very little about her that has not been directed by fate, in some respects.

“It feels that way, sometimes,” she admits. “But it doesn’t matter. If I’m the only one who _can_ stop him,” she says, and shrugs, “then I will. I’m not going to let everyone die.”

Paarthurnax rumbles in response. _“And so,”_ he says, _“perhaps your destiny will be fulfilled, after all. Who can say? Dez motmahus. Even to the Dov, who ride the currents of Time,”_ Eres does not miss the sharp glance Serana sends her. _Yes_ , she thinks. _I heard that, too._

 _“_ _Destiny is elusive. Alduin believes that he will prevail, with good reason. Rok mul. And he is no fool. Ni mey, rinik gut nol. Far from it. He began as the wisest and most far-seeing of us all.”_

 _“But,”_ Paarthurnax says at last, _“you have indulged my weakness for speech long enough. Krosis. Now I will answer your question. Do you know why I live here, at the peak of the Monahven - what you name Throat of the World?”_

“I don’t see how that answers my question.” For some reason, Paarthurnax almost reminds her of Esbern - old, and wise, but with a tendency to ramble on tangents. Paarthurnax, at least, is not quite as annoying when he does it, but all the same, for some reason she gets the sense that he is, in terms of Dragons, very, very old. And it shows. Somehow, every word he speaks seems to serve some kind of lesson he wishes to impart on her.

 _“Drem,”_ he chides her. It is always _patience_ with him. Eres has never been an especially patient person. Not when it always feels as though she’s running out of time. _“I am answering, in my way. This is the most sacred mountain in Skyrim. Most Sacred—The great mountain of the world. Here, the ancient Tongues, the first mortal masters of the Voice, brought Alduin to battle and defeated him.”_

“Using the Dragonrend shout, right? That’s what I need.”

 _“Yes, and no.”_ Paarthurnax answers. _“Viik nuz ni kron. Alduin was not truly defeated, either. If he was, you would not be here today, seeking to… defeat him. The Nords of those days used the Dragonrend Shout to cripple Alduin. But this was not enough. Ok mulaag unslaad. It was the Kel - the Elder Scroll. They used it to… cast him adrift on the currents of Time.”_

“Wait a second—” Serana starts, “you’re saying these warriors sent him _forward_ in time? To us? To now?”

_“Not intentionally. Some hoped he would be gone forever, forever lost. Meyye. I knew better. Tiid bo amativ. Time flows ever onward. One day he would surface. Which is why I have lived here. For thousands of mortal years, I have waited. I knew where he would emerge, but not when.”_

Paarthurnax angles his head, gesturing toward a strange rippling in the air not so far from where the Word Wall stood. Somehow, she had not even noticed it on the climb.

_“Tiid Krent. Time was… shattered here, because of what the Ancient Nords did to Alduin. If you brought that Kel, that Elder Scroll back here, to the Tiid-Ahraan, the Time Wound…”_

Eres trudges nearer to that ripple in the air, Paarthurnax’s words at her back. It was not unlike looking upon the ripple of an invisibility spell, or a ward. If she reached out to it, she is almost certain she would be able to even _feel_ the disturbance in the air where it wavers.

“Eres,” Serana warns, at her side, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I think that Scroll might be the one we—that _I_ read before, in the Ancestor Glade,” she tells Serana. “The Dragon scroll. It would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” Serana admits, but she still looks wary. “But I don’t like the idea of you touching it. We should go back to the College, see if we can’t get Mirabelle to loan us the scroll again. Maybe we can find another way for you to learn this Shout through it, without—”

Paarthurnax grumbles his disagreement. _“She must bring the Scroll here,”_ he intones. _“With the Elder Scroll that was used to break Time,”_ he turns to Eres, “ _you may be able to_ _… cast yourself back. To the other end of the break. You could learn Dragonrend from those who had created it.”_

That sounds awfully familiar. Serana must think so, too, because the first thing she does is pull Eres away from the Time Wound.

“Eres, _no_.”

“It’s the only way to learn it.” Eres looks at that ripple in the air, and there is something in it that calls to her. “It’s the only way to stop him.”

“We’ll _find_ another way.” Serana insists, her gaze hard and unyielding. “After everything that happened to you, you really think seeking out _another_ Dragon Break is a good idea? Eres, you’re _mortal_. There’s only so much you can take. We’ll go back to the College and meet with Mirabelle and move from there. Maybe there’s something we missed the first time.”

Maybe there _is_ something they missed. Maybe there isn’t. One way or another, going back to the College and coming all the way back here, even on a whim that they might be able to find another way—it would just be wasting more time. Time where Alduin could be out there, destroying the lives of yet more people while Eres is floundering, trying to find a safer way to answer her calling. At this point, it’s not about her, anymore.

“I can’t be selfish anymore, with this.” There are plenty of things Eres still wants to be selfish about - Serana, for one. If she had less of a conscience, she might have run away with her months ago, disappeared somewhere where no one might find them. They could spend the rest of their lives together with no destinies or fates or prophecies to answer for. Eres has even thought about it more than once.

But this is different. It’s not just _her_ life on the line. Not just Serana’s. Not even just her loved ones. Everyone in the entire _world_ is counting on her to defeat Alduin. There’s no one else who can do it. No one except her. And she’s wasted enough time until now, sitting on her hands, holding back when she should have plunged headfirst.

Perhaps if she had taken this seriously to begin with, she wouldn’t feel so burdened by it now. Perhaps she could have gotten a headstart. Perhaps there might have been another way.

Perhaps, they would have had time.

Eres knows that they don’t. She doesn’t know _how_ she knows—only that she does, and that Alduin will return here, sooner or later. She has to be ready for him, or the entire world will be at stake. She doesn’t have time to go hunting for an alternative solution they might never find.

Eres turns her head to look at that ripple in time, and the sight of it, the _feel_ of it is markedly familiar. She’s been here, before. Not _here_ specifically, but—here, as in, knowing what she must do. Knowing how she must move forward from here. Knowing she doesn’t have a choice.

Eres doesn’t need the Scroll. The knowledge it bears is a knowledge she already holds within her. There is a reason the Time Wound calls to her, now, even without the Scroll at hand. It reaches for her as if expectant, as if welcoming, as if it, too, has waited millennia for her appearance here.

“Time cannot be denied.” For a moment, Eres does not know where the words come from. For a moment, she is surprised to hear her own voice, for she had not even realized she had spoken. Was it truly _her_ that had spoken, or something that spoke _through_ her?

 _“Doom-driven…”_ comes Paarthurnax’s rumbling growl from above. _“The power is within you already. Time shudders… There is no question. Kogaan Akatosh. The very bones of the earth are at your disposal. Go then. Fulfill your destiny. Embrace it_ ,” he says, just as Eres feels it thrumming beneath her skin. _“Do not delay. Alduin will be coming. He cannot miss the signs.”_

Eres feels it, inside her. If someone had asked her, she could not have even described what _it_ was. Only that she knows this feeling, that she has felt it before, and that it is one that her experiences in Coldharbour had made all too familiar. It is the feeling of knowing there is something she must do, of knowing that something, somewhere, some _when_ , is calling for her, needing to be heard. It is the Time Wound, reaching for her, drawing her in, yearning to show her what must be known.

She is meant for this. Perhaps, in a way, she had been _born_ for this, specifically, if the prophecy was to be believed. She had been Chosen. The choice had been made for her, long before it was ever hers to make.

There is a moment, then, that Eres feels sorry. Not sorry for herself - though she has plenty of reason to be, if she thinks about it - but sorry for Serana, who looks at her like she fears Eres might vanish right before her eyes.

It must be hard to love her, Eres thinks. She had thought that as a child, in her insecurity, in her feelings of inadequacy - but this was not that. Then, she had thought it must be hard to love her, for it seemed like no one who claimed to ever stayed around for very long.

Now, it is not that she thinks Serana will leave. On the contrary, it is that she knows Serana will not. It must be hard to love her, she thinks, because she might never be safe from what the world asks of her. If _she_ had been in Serana’s shoes—if she had been the one watching _Serana_ fling herself into one dangerous situation after another, she can only imagine how helpless she would feel. How much she would feel like her love isn’t enough to keep her safe.

Eres does not say it, in front of Paarthurnax, but she hopes that Serana sees it in her. She hopes that she sees it in the way she looks at her—that she is sorry, that she loves her, that there is nothing more she would like than to turn away from it, but that she can’t. She hopes that Serana sees the love in her, in the moments before she allows it to take hold of her.

That is the last conscious thought she has, before it happens. That it must be rotten work, loving her. That one day, she hopes she can make it worth it.

Then Eres feels the biting cold of hard-packed snow beneath her knees, and the world _shifts_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol my beta is BIG mad


	13. Preeminent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edited 06/20/2020: fixed some weird wording pointed out by an anon lol. hopefully reads better now: :P

_The world shifts, and suddenly, Serana is no longer by her side. She feels wind, whipping at her clothes. She feels the chill of snow, melting through the knees of her trousers. But she is no longer kneeling at the Throat of the World, no longer truly existing at all—she is both there, and yet not._

_The roar of a dragon sounds above her. Two, perhaps three of them, swooping low overhead. The sky is tinted red with approaching dusk. She watches as a dragon banks low over her head, swooping to turn back for another pass. It is not Alduin, this dragon, but it is just as large, just as vicious, just as evil in the power she senses from him._

_“Gormlaith! We’re running out of time! The battle…” There is a voice upon the wind, a human—a Nord, running just past her vision._

_And over him, the speech of a dragon, his rumble so deep and so powerful that it feels almost as though he speaks from just behind where she stands._

**_“Daar sul thur se Alduin vokrii. Today, Alduin’s lordship will be restored.”_ **

_These were the Tongues, the ancient warriors who had preceded the Greybeards. These were the warriors who had bested Alduin himself, so long ago. These dragons - had they been Alduin_ _’s allies? The Dragon Cult which the Tongues had hated so deeply?_

 **_“But I honor your courage. Krif voth ahkrin. Die now, in vain.”_ ** _Comes that same dragon_ _’s voice, and she turns—and sees him, stalking closer to the warriors gathered before her. The warriors do not cower, do not bow down to him—they fight him, brave as any warrior could have hoped to be._

_There is a woman, there among them, and it is she who deals the final blow._

_“Know that Gormlaith sent you down to your death!” And when that dragon is felled, this Gormlaith turns to her allies, a self-satisfied grin upon her weathered features. “Hakon! A glorious day, is it not?” She asks, as though such a battle is nothing more than ordinary. As if this day had been no different from any other._

_“Have you no thought beyond the blooding of your blade?” Hakon mutters._

_“What else is there?” Gormlaith answers, grinning all the more. The bloodthirst in her is strong, as strong as any of the dov._

_“The battle below goes ill. If Alduin does not rise to our challenge, I fear all will be lost.” Hakon, the voice of reason._

_“You worry too much, brother. Victory will be ours.”_

_“Why does Alduin hang back? We’ve staked everything on this plan of yours, old man.”_

_Another voice, then._ _“He will come. He cannot ignore our defiance. And why should he fear us, even now?”_

 _“We’ve bloodied him well. Four of his kin have fallen to **my** blade alone._ _” Gormlaith is unshakeable, even so._

_“But none have yet stood against Alduin himself,” says the second man. “Galthor, Sorri, Birkir…” Just how many had died to Alduin’s Dragon Cult?_

_Gormlaith scoffs._ _“ **They** did not know Dragonrend. Once we bring him down, I promise I will have his head._ _”_

_“You do not understand. Alduin cannot be slain like a lesser dragon. He is beyond our strength. Which is why I brought the Elder Scroll.”_

_“Felldir!” Hakon barks, brandishing his blade. “We agreed not to use it!”_

_“I agreed to nothing,” Felldir retorts. “If you are right, I will not need it. But if you are wrong…”_

_Hakon shakes his head._ _“No. We will deal with Alduin ourselves, here and now.”_

_“We shall see soon enough. Alduin approaches!”_

_Eres hears him before she sees him._

**_“Meyye! Tahrodiis aanne! Him hinde pah liiv! Zu’u hin daan!”_ **

_“Let those that watch from Sovngarde envy us this day!”_

_She does not watch from Sovngarde, but perhaps the Time Wound is something like it._

_The three warriors band as one, drawing deep from their lungs, and she hears the power of their Shout upon the wind:_

**_“Joor Zah Frul!”_ **

_She sees it when the power of that Shout hits him, sees the power of it take hold of him, clipping his wings. She sees him as he tries to right himself, as his wings fail to lift him—and as he drops to the ground just before them. He roars his displeasure, his anger—_

**_“Nivahriin joorre! What have you done?! What twisted Words have you created? Tahrodiis Paarthurnax! My teeth to his neck!”_ ** _But then Alduin turns his head, and for a moment, her heart freezes, somewhere in her chest that is not a chest. For a moment, it feels almost as though he sees her._ **_“But first… Dir ko maar. You will die in terror, knowing your final fate. To feed my power when I come for you in Sovngarde!”_ **

_Gormlaith is not afraid of his threats._ _“If I die today, it will not be in terror! You feel fear for the first time, worm. I see it in your eyes! Skyrim will be fre—_ _”_

 _Gormlaith does not even finish the sentence. Alduin snaps his great maw over her entire body, whips her like a doll in his jaws—Eres blinks, and she sees not Alduin, but Molag Bal. Not Gormlaith, but Altano. Not mountains and snow, but the dark stone and ring of flames beneath Stendarr_ _’s Beacon. She blinks, and she is a helpless Vigilant, in well over her head. For a moment, she swears she even hears him in her mind, the touch of his Blessing upon her—_

_“Deliver unto him my Justice—”_

_But then she blinks once more, and the vision of the altar beneath the Beacon is gone. It is not Molag Bal killing Altano, but it is Alduin, snuffing out the life of Gormlaith right before her eyes._

_“No!” Hakon cries out with horror. “Damn you! Felldir, the scroll—Use it now!”_

_“Hold, Alduin on the Wing! Sister Hawk, grant us your sacred breath to make this contract heard! Begone, World-Eater! By words with older bones than your own, we break your perch on this age and send you out! You are banished! Alduin, we Shout you out from all our endings unto the last!”_

_All our endings unto the last—was that what she lived in, now? Is her current time the last ending? Is that why she is the last Dragonborn?_

**_“Fal Kel…? Nikriine—!”_ ** _Alduin vanishes before her, flung through time—flung from **this** time to her own. _

_“It worked.” Hakon says, releasing his breath. He turns to Felldir, heaving. “You did it…”_

_“Yes, the World-Eater is gone.” Felldir sags where he stands, and his next words are filled with remorse. “May the spirits have mercy on our souls…”_

* * *

Eres is on her knees in the snow. There are hands on her shoulders, holding her upright. She feels the ground shake, the beat of the wind under Paarthurnax’s wings, and then—

**_“Bahloki nahkip sillesejoor. My belly is full of the souls of your fellow mortals, Dovahkiin.”_ **

Awareness comes to her, then. Awareness, and understanding, and determination—she lurches to her feet, drawing her bow with hands that cramp and fight against the sudden movement.

**_“Die now, and await your fate in Sovngarde.”_ **

Alduin rises higher above them, ducking away, far out of range—she knows he means only to return for them, to bank and double back. Paarthurnax’s voice bellows down to her.

_“Lost funt. You are too late, Alduin! Dovahkiin—use Dragonrend, if you know it! Bring him to ground!”_

Eres cannot worry for the anger she sees in Serana’s eyes, now, cannot worry for the argument she is sure will come later. Alduin must be brought to bear, here and now, while she has the chance to do so.

Eres waits, tracking him with her eyes, watching the pattern of his flight. Only when she is sure she will hit him does she Shout it into the skies to bring him down.

**_“Joor Zah Frul!”_ **

She can feel the power of the Shout take hold of him, can feel it dig into his body, can feel it render his wings useless. She’s _got_ him.

Alduin’s great black form plummets to the ground before her, landing awkwardly just meters from where they stand.

**_“You may have picked up the weapons of my ancient foes, but you are not their equal!”_ **

Eres sees his maw open, sees the flame build in his gullet, and she has nowhere to hide. Nowhere that she can duck away from the blast of flame he aims at her, she is done, she is finished, here and now, after all she had done to stop him—she had not thought she would be fighting Alduin _now_ , alone, so soon after exhausting herself on the climb. She had not been prepared, and now, she would pay for her—

Serana steps in front of her, swearing, and Eres watches a wall of ice as tall as Paarthurnax erupt from the ground before them, slamming high into the sky, stripping the rocky crags of the mountainside bare of all snow and ice that had been upon it. The blast of flames slams into the other side of the wall, but though Eres can feel its heat licking at her skin, somehow—somehow, it does not break through the wall Serana has erected.

 ** _“Meyz mul, Dovahkiin. You have become strong. But I am Alduin, Firstborn of Akatosh! Mulaagi zok lot! I cannot be slain here, by you or anyone else! You cannot prevail against me.”_** Eres hears the beat of his wings upon the air once more, and he is above her, sneering down at her with his lips curled over jagged rows of sharp teeth. **_“I will outlast you. Mortal.”_**

Eres draws breath into her lungs once more, feeling the chill as it threatens to freeze her from the inside out—but then Alduin is turning, soaring far away from the peak, far away from them. Eres watches his black form until he is but a speck on the horizon, and it is then that she falls again to her knees, shuddering and weak and _terrified_.

“Serana—” she manages, just as the great wall of ice drops and shatters before her. Serana sags with it, panting, eyes brighter than Eres has ever seen them. “Serana, are you—”

Serana, doubled over, looks up at her only long enough to send her a sharp, heated glare, and the look in her eyes is somewhere between unfathomable _fury_ and open disgust—disgust with her decision, disgust with how she’d… How _she_ had unilaterally decided to take all of the risk associated with the Time Wound, without even pausing to discuss it with her.

Eres’ heart sinks. She presses her lips together, sinking back where she kneels. It didn’t matter what her intentions were. She’d known she had to do it, known it was the only way she could fight Alduin—but she should have _said something_. She should have said _anything_ , and yet—she’d said nothing, and her selfishness had placed them _both_ in danger. She should have _listened._

Paarthurnax rumbles with pleasure as he lands upon the Word Wall, and Eres gets the sense that he is grinning down at her.

 _“Lot krongrah,”_ he says to her. _“You truly have the Voice of a Dovah. Alduin’s allies will think twice after this victory.”_

 _Victory_? Was that what he thought this was? She’d barely even fought him. All she’d done was bring him to ground _once_ , and stand there while she almost got roasted alive. If it hadn’t been for Serana, she might not be here at all. And then, he’d just _left_ them there. She hadn’t defeated him. She had hardly even fought him. She’d just delayed the inevitable.

Just like Arngeir had said she would.

“He escaped.” Everything is cold. Her fingers feel like they’ve frozen around the supple frame of her bow. Perhaps she deserves that. “That’s not a victory.”

_“Ni livrah hin moro. True, this is not the final victory. But not even the heroes of old were able to defeat Alduin in open battle. Alduin always was pahlok - arrogant in his power. Uznahgar paar. He took domination as his birthright. This—his retreat at your display of power, should shake the loyalty of the Dov who serve him.”_

_Focus_ , she tells herself. Serana, ahead of her, rises to her feet. She braces her hands on her hips, turning away from her, but Eres does not miss the thunderous expression on her face before she does. _Focus._

There is Alduin, yes. But Serana—how could she focus on anything else, when Serana had looked at her like that? When she had put Serana in danger like that? How could she think of anything else? How could she feel anything other than guilt and shame?

Eres climbs unsteadily to her feet. Serana does not help her. Even if she had, Eres is not sure she would have deserved it.

_Focus._

“Where did he go?” Eres asks Paarthurnax. Focus on the present. Focus on what she needs to know _now_. She and Serana will—they will have time, later. They will have time. “What about these other dragons who serve him? Do you know who they are?”

 _“Yes… One of his allies could tell us where he has gone. Motmahus… But it will not be so easy to convince one of them to betray him. Perhaps the hofkahsejun - the palace in Whiterun.. Dragonsreach. It was originally built to house a captured Dovah.”_ There is that sense, again. The sense that Paarthurnax is smiling at her. _“A fine place to trap one of Alduin’s allies, hm?”_

“I don’t think the Jarl will agree to that.” Eres sighs, feeling exhaustion down to her bones. Why would the Jarl of Whiterun help her in this? Why would he even agree to do it at all?

_“Hmm, yes. But your su’um is strong. I do not doubt that you can convince him of the need.”_

Eres is not so sure of that. She is not so sure she can convince anyone of anything, anymore. Not when she can’t even work up the courage to tell Serana what she is doing _before_ she does it. Not when her so-called _speech_ to the Vigilants had amounted to her dumping the Horn on them and letting them figure it out for themselves.

She’s never convinced anyone of anything. Let alone herself.

Serana sighs, then, disrupting her train of thought. “Let’s get back to High Hrothgar, then.”

Eres can’t remember the last time she’d heard her sound so cold. So detached. “Serana—”

“We’ll talk when we get back.” Serana cuts her with a glance. Eres quiets, and watches helplessly as she marches off ahead of her down the same incline from which they had come.

Behind her, Eres hears Paarthurnax’s low rumble.

 _“She will understand,”_ he says to her, as quietly as a dragon might be able to. _“It is fear that guides her now. Not anger. Tinvaak,”_ he murmurs to her. _“It is as important between joorre as it is between we dov. Go now, young one. The burden you bear grows no lighter for your delay.”_

* * *

_“We’ll talk when we get back,”_ Serana had said, but when the doors of High Hrothgar close behind them, she is still not ready. When they are yet again in the private wing, secluded from all others within the temple, Serana is still not ready.

She is still not ready to speak of it, even when Eres turns to her, an apology written on her face long before she gives voice to it. It is not anger that stills her tongue, but _fear_.

Yes, she is angry—in a way. But mostly, she had been terrified. Terrified by the decision she’d seen in Eres’ eyes, then, by the way she’d been helpless to watch as Eres’ eyes glazed over, as she fell to her knees in the snow. As she’d gone completely unresponsive, near-catatonic, as nothing Serana had done had been able to get through to her.

Serana had held Eres in her arms, and it was not anger she felt then, but _terror_ —terror that the lifeless, limp form in her arms would never return to her. That Eres’ eyes would never see her again, that she would never look upon her again, that she would never walk or talk or—or do anything, ever again.

She had been cold, then. Perhaps that is what had made it so much worse. That the biting cold of the mountaintop had made Eres’ skin as cold as her own, when she held her, that Eres’ unconscious form had been near indistinguishable from the dead. Had it not been for the sound of her heart that Serana strained to hear over the wind, she might not have thought Eres even alive.

And the weight of her in her arms, limp and unmoving, unblinking—that had been too much like Serana’s greatest fear. That one day Eres would die, and she would be powerless to stop it. Had it not been for Paarthurnax staying her, steadying her, she might have—she might have turned her, then, out of pure desperation.

They had had _options_. There were other ways, other routes they could have taken. But Eres had not wanted to argue. She had just let it take hold of her, and given in to it, and she looked at Serana like she could not have stopped it if she tried. Eres had known what it would do to her, and she did not even so much as whisper a word of warning.

Did she know, how close Serana had come? Did she know what horror she’d struck in her? _Could she_? Could she ever truly know?

Eres approaches her, now, with that regret in her eyes, with that sorrow in every facet of her being. She reaches for her, hands outstretched, and Serana hates that she must catch them, must hold them away from her, must push her back—not roughly, mind, Serana takes the care to do so gently. No matter how she feels, no matter how upset she is, she would never hurt her intentionally.

Just as she knows that Eres had not meant to hurt her.

“Serana—”

Serana looks at her. She allows Eres to see the pain in her eyes, and, so too, does she allow her to see the hunger.

“Not now,” she manages, with considerable effort. Here, in the temple where the air is warm, Eres too is beginning to warm again—and the sudden warmth it brings to cooled skin only intensifies the draw of her scent, the draw of the blood warming her from the inside out. “Go—warm up,” she says. “I need to feed, and I need to do it alone.”

“Serana, I’m sorry—”

“Take your bath first.” Serana keeps her tone level. She does not want to sound resentful, or angry with her, even though there is a part of her that is. She does not want to make Eres think she doesn’t want to see her—on the contrary, there is an even larger part of her that wants to hold her and never let her go, stronger than it has ever been before.

She had almost lost Eres, today. She is as sure of that as she could be of anything. But the magic she’d had to use to shield them from what might have been Alduin’s killing blow had been immense, and far more than she had ever expended in one burst. Had it not been for her fear, for the adrenaline that ramped up in her when she’d seen the direction his blast would take—when she’d seen that _Eres_ was his target…

She is not sure she could have called that much magic to fore at any other time. Now, it has drained her, and the burn at the back of her throat is as though she had gargled acid, and even the scent of her near is almost too much to bear. The beat of Eres’ heart feels like a challenge, like a calling.

Now is not the time.

“I need to feed,” she repeats, as softly as she can manage. “And you can’t be here when I do.”

She sees it, the understanding in Eres’ eyes. She also sees how it pains her, how much Eres blames herself for even that. Serana had known that she would.

But Eres nods. “Alright,” she agrees, and her voice is little more than a hushed whisper. “When I get back—”

“When you get back, we’ll talk.” Serana confirms. “Go on.”

Eres hesitates. There is a moment in which it looks as though she might lean closer, that she might step into her, and kiss her as they part—but then Eres’ eyes dart away, and she turns, and Serana cannot help but feel as though somehow, she has made Eres feel as though she could not. As though Serana would have refused her. (She would not. Sometimes, she thinks she never could, that Eres’ affection would never be something she could refuse.)

When Eres has left, when Serana is alone, she sinks into the seat at the desk, head in her hands.

She had almost lost her. And she does not know if she could have let her go. That, more than anything, scares her most. She knows as well as anyone that Eres would not want to be turned. But in that moment, her fear had taken hold of her, and she could not breathe for the thought of losing her. She had considered it. Gods, but she had considered it.

Her throat burns, reminding her of the hunger that makes her weak in mind as well as body. With a sigh, Serana leans over to pull her bag from the floor, where it sits beside the leg of the table. It is the same bag she has kept on her for days now, that she has kept at her side for a last resort. For a worst case scenario.

It’s almost ironic, how she had brought the blood extractor to Eres for the exact purpose of using it to accustom herself to her blood, and yet—it had been well over a week, and she had not partaken of it even once.

Perhaps there was a part of her that feared what effect it might have on her. Perhaps there was a part of her that only wished to save it for the moment she _truly_ needed it—but then, that would not allow her to grow used to it, would it?

From the magicked pouch within the bag that keeps the vials warm, keeps them as fresh as they can possible be, Serana retrieves a single vial. The heat of the fluid within the glass seems as though it burns her fingers, compared to the chill of her skin from the weather out on the mountain. Within that vial, the fluid is as viscous and dark red as it had been the day she had taken it from her.

It is only when Serana reaches to pull the stopper from its end that she realizes her hands are trembling, shaking with something between anxiety and—and is it fear, still?

If it _is_ fear, Serana cannot even say what it is that she fears more, now—the thought that Eres might have fallen today, or the fact that, if this does not serve to stave her hunger, it may be _herself_ who hurts Eres, tonight.

She’s being silly. Paranoid. Fearful over nothing. She knows, once her hunger is sated, that Eres will not tempt her. Not tonight, when her mind is so far away from the things that would normally demand her attention in such a way. Serana shakes her head, admonishes herself for the way she has allowed her thoughts to spiral.

She uncorks the vial.

It is the scent of it that hits her first. It does smell like her, though diluted from age—it is not as fresh as it had once been, and that, she knows, will affect the taste as well as the scent, and yet… And yet.

And yet, the taste of it on her tongue is of ambrosia, of paradise, of - of things she cannot name, of things she cannot describe, of _feelings_ and emotions that should not exist in mere drops of blood, but _do_. There is a heat it brings in her, even as it coats her tongue, even as it soothes the raging fire against the back of her throat. It soothes the ache of it, the burn of it, the pain of it, only to start a deeper simmering underneath, a different kind of warmth, a different kind of heat that starts in her throat and sinks low to her stomach, and—no, it does not go lower, this day, but Serana knows that it would, had she drank from Eres directly.

By the time Serana remembers to think, to stop herself, to measure herself, it is only thanks to the sound of shatterproof glass clinking against stone as an emptied vial tumbles from her palm. Serana blinks, and there is another, and another, and there are three empty vials in her hand and her fingers are wrapped around the stopper of a fourth, and she cannot even remember having opened the other two.

It takes great effort to stow that vial away again, knowing how close the blood had been to her tongue. When Serana licks her lips, she can taste it, taste _her_ —and there is a moment that her head turns, that her eyes fall upon the door to the washroom, and there is an urge in her to go, to join her, to find her, even now in her nakedness, in her vulnerability—to gather Eres into her arms and sink beneath the water and turn that water red with her blood—

Not for the want of killing her. Never that. Serana is not that far gone, and she will never be. But there is a part of her that yearns to share that with her, to feel that closeness that cannot be effected by any other means. To hold her close to breast and take from her what would be freely offered—for Eres has offered it, on more than one occasion, and she would do so now, Serana knows.

A vial shatters in her hand. The glass does not break the skin, but Serana curses all the same.

But it keeps her from acting on it. It brings her mind back to clarity, back to _logic_. Now is not the time for her to be focusing on her hunger. There are more important things, now.

But it is true that she knows, now, that the potions will not last for long, and they may not have the effect she and Valerica had hoped for. It had only seemed to make her want Eres _more_ , rather than less, and now that Serana has tasted of her, even this diluted, stale version of her—she knows that nothing else might ever satisfy her thirst again.

She will need that blood replenishment potion sooner than she had thought she would. From what she remembers, they take several days to brew, if she can find the right ingredients—and then several days more to take effect on the body’s system. They of course would need to be tailored to Eres, specifically…

Serana runs through the calculations in her head, even as she rises from her seat. She does not have parchment or quill and ink, but she is almost certain that Eres does, somewhere. Serana moves to Eres’ pack, mumbling it under her breath so that she does not forget it.

How much could Eres weigh? Once upon a time, Serana could have more easily guessed at her weight, at what percentage of her was lean muscle compared to fat—but now, after Coldharbour, she knows that Eres has lost much of the muscle she had had the last time Serana had seen her undressed, and she would likely need to reduce her estimate… But by how much? Half a stone? One? More than that? She certainly hoped not, but she could not discount the possibility when Eres seemed to have been in Coldharbour, half-starved and out of her mind, for months on end…

Serana does not ask permission to go through Eres’ bag. Eres has never been particular about the pack she brings with her, having nothing within it that would constitute as private, and she trusts Serana besides. Serana does not even think twice to open the first leather-bound journal she finds, thumbing through it in the hopes of finding a few blank pages to do her calculations upon.

She means not to look. Really, she does. She is not the kind of person who snoops in someone’s things, no matter how close she might be to them. But she cannot help the way her eyes catch upon the strange, jagged letters written on several of the pages. At first she discounts it as perhaps practice for the language the Dragons write in - she knows that Eres has learned some of it, and it would not surprise her that she had practiced it at some point or another, especially here in High Hrothgar.

But she keeps flipping, and there are pages upon pages of it, and perhaps her curiosity does get the best of her—she cannot read Dovahzul, besides, so what is the harm—only, it is not Dovahzul she finds there.

It is not the Dragon language at all.

Serana pauses, a page open before her—a page filled with not the claw-like marks of the Dragon language, but the shaky, unsteady hand of someone new to writing, of someone who is not familiar with the holding of a quill. At first, then, there is the fleeting thought that perhaps Eres had allowed Neil to write within her journal, and perhaps she had grabbed the wrong one when they had left Fellburg the last time, being in such a rush as they were…

But no. There are pages upon pages of this, and none of it—none of it appears to be written in the hand of a toddler. Serana has seen Eres’ handwriting before—it is not especially neat, hurried more often than careful, and the words she sees scrawled across these pages do not look as though they had been written by Eres’ hand, but rather—almost as though Eres had written them in her non-dominant hand, with a shakiness, an unsteadiness, an unguided hand that sends words scrawling off the lines, curling into the margins or flowing from one page to the other.

They are not just words, but sentences—if Serana squints, tilts her head just so, she can almost read them—a word here, and there, and this almost looks like a sentence, if she could make sense of it. Serana, frowning, flips back through the pages she has already passed. More of them. Page after page after page of them. Dozens of them.

Pages upon pages upon pages, filled from one end to the next with rambling, disconnected words and phrases, some which seem entirely nonsensical and others which fill up entire pages with a single word or phrase. On one page, Serana sees the name _Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary—_ scrawled over, and over, and over again, until the name stops looking like a name at all.

On another, there are nothing but circles, drawn with heavy, bold lines, inked so deeply into the paper that it has torn in some places and bled onto the next. And on the page just adjacent to that, ramblings of _Ada_ and _Stones_ and _Towers, Broken towers_ and _laughing priests_ and—

The washroom door opens, and there is Eres, dressed down and prepared for the night. She sends Serana a wan smile when she looks at her.

“Hey,” she says softly, and comes nearer. Serana holds the journal in one hand, and does not even think to release it. “Did you want to bathe first?” Eres’ eyes drop to the journal in her hands, and her head tilts curiously. “What’s that?”

Serana stares at her. For a moment, she’s not even sure she remembers what she had been upset about to begin with. She _does_ remember, after a moment—but it is nothing compared to the concern the journal has wrought in her. She holds it up to her, opens its pages so Eres can see them clearly.

“You don’t recognize this?”

Eres looks at the scrawled writings upon the pages, then back up at her with a raised brow. “Should I?” she asks, though she takes the journal all the same.

Serana watches her face as she flips through it—and not once does it seem as though Eres recognizes anything that is written. There is confusion, there, yes—but not recognition.

“Where did you even find this?”

“Your bag.”

“ _Mine?_ ” Eres looks at her, plainly surprised. Then she looks down, her brow furrowed deeply. Eres could not have feigned the confounded look on her face, then. “Did _I_ write this?” Eres mutters, almost to herself more than Serana.

Serana shifts uncomfortably next to her. “I was looking for a piece of paper.” She knows Eres wouldn’t mind, normally, but she does feel the need to at least explain she hadn’t been intentionally looking through her things. “I just—I saw all these, and I… I couldn’t figure out what any of it meant. Eres, this _almost_ looks like your handwriting—”

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” Eres says to her, and there is a certain amount of frustration in her voice. Frustration for not being able to tell when or why she had written it, perhaps. “If I wrote with my left hand…”

Serana had come to the same conclusion. It hadn’t looked like a toddler’s handwriting, not like Neil’s might have been—it looked _unpracticed_. And some of the things written in that hand…

“You really don’t remember writing any of this?”

“No.” Eres turns the journal over, looking at its cover, and her frown only deepens. “I don’t even remember having a journal like this to begin with.” She looks at Serana, plainly baffled. “Have _you_ ever seen me write in this thing?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” Serana is with Eres nearly all the time. When might she have written in it, that Serana would not have been aware of? Would it have been sometime before Serana had started lying with her at night? “Eres… Some of the things written here…”

“I know.” Eres looks like she wants to close it, but her hands keep flipping through it, from one page to the next to the next. “These are all—” she shakes her head. “This is all about Coldharbour. Things I saw there. Mary,” she points out the very same page Serana had seen earlier. “And this,” she points to the rough drawings upon the page, fingers tracing the outlines of one of the shapes. “This almost looks like the Stone.”

Serana watches, silent, as Eres flips through more of the pages—there are things within them that Serana can’t make sense of, but if the frown on Eres’ face is anything to go by, Eres _can_. That frown deepens, and deepens, until finally Eres scowls and tosses the journal onto the desk, plainly done with it.

“Looks like something Septimus would have written,” Eres mutters, and she turns away from it entirely. “It’s probably nothing.”

Serana cannot look at the journal and dismiss it as _nothing_. And Septimus—the crazed man they’d met when they’d been looking for one of the Elder Scrolls? Serana can only barely remember the book he’d written, his _ruminations_ —but Eres is not wrong. The rambling phrases, the disjointed words and strange diagrams… It _did_ look similar. And that unsettles her more than she would like to admit.

“I don’t like this,” Serana says to her. She does not look at the journal again. Her hunger is far from her mind now, far from anything she can bring herself to be concerned with at the moment. “We should stop at Fellburg on the way to Whiterun. Maybe your mother might have some idea what’s going on.”

Eres, climbing into the bed, frowns at her. “What would my mother know about it?”

“She does have some experience with mind-healing, doesn’t she?” Serana asks, and she cannot say she is surprised by the scowl that forms on Eres’ face.

“I don’t want her rummaging through my head again.”

“Eres, you may not have a choice. That—whatever that is, isn’t normal. And especially after what happened _today_ ,” suddenly, Serana feels that irritation rising up in her all over again. “You _threw_ yourself headfirst into another Dragon Break, _knowing_ what it could do to you. What were you thinking?”

“How was I supposed to know about that? I’ve never seen that journal before today—”

“I’m not talking about the fucking journal, Eres!” Serana doesn’t even realize she’s thrown it until she hears the smack of the leather against the far wall, until she sees Eres _flinch_ at the sound of it. Guilt gnaws at her, remembering what Eres had told her not even a full day ago. Her _father_ had been violent toward her. If anyone should understand how that feels, it would be Serana herself.

Serana inhales, slow and steadying. She runs a hand through her hair, trying to tamp down her frustration, trying to calm herself. She needs Eres to know that she _is_ upset, but she’s not—it’s not _anger_ , really. She’d been _afraid_ for her.

“I’m sorry,” Serana sighs. “I just—I wish you would take things more seriously, sometimes. This is your _life_ we’re talking about. Anything could have gone wrong up there, and I would have had no way to help you. And that’s just the _Break_ , not even mentioning Alduin—”

“I didn’t know he was going to show up right then,” Eres mutters. “I..” Eres pushes herself up on the bed until she is leaning against the headboard, and Serana sees her shoulders heave with the sigh that falls from her lips. “I’m sorry, that I didn’t tell you what I was doing. I can’t—explain what it feels like, really. It reminded me of—”

“Coldharbour.” Serana knows this, without Eres having to tell her. “It was the same thing you experienced there, wasn’t it? With the—the memories, or whatever it was.”

She feels awkward, standing here across the room while Eres sits so far away on the bed. Serana does not know that Eres would welcome her touch right now—does not know that _she_ would offer it, just now. And so instead she sits across from her, at the opposite end, and she does not reach for her even though she wants to. Even though it feels somehow wrong not to.

“That’s what it felt like,” Eres confirms quietly. She wrings her hands in her lap, pulling at her fingers, twisting them, a nervous habit. Serana wants to reach for them, to still them with her own—but not now. Not now. “It was reaching for me. It had to show me something. It had to show me what happened, before—it wasn’t the same as the memories. I could change those, I could _do_ something with those—this was just… It was just something I needed to see. It was the only way I could learn Dragonrend. I didn’t have a choice.”

Serana sighs, reaching to rub at her temples. “Eres, I get it, I do—but, you weren’t there after you got back. You don’t know what you were like when you got out of Coldharbour. I was…” She swallows thickly, hurting for the memory of it.

“I was so afraid you weren’t going to wake up. You just collapsed, right in front of me, and there was nothing I could to help you. We didn’t even know if you’d _ever_ wake up _back then_ , before you did. It was… It was rough, for a time.”

“I don’t remember.” Eres admits. There is a hesitance in her, then, for just a moment. But then she reaches, reaches for Serana, clasping a hand around her own and tugging her closer. Serana does not fight it. She would not have wanted to. “I don’t remember anything until I woke up.”

“I know. That’s why—” Serana sighs. She settles herself beside her. They do not lay down, just yet, though part of her wants to. She feels tired, all over, and it is not because she is hungry. “That’s why I realized that maybe I can’t hold this against you. Because you don’t know what you were like when you came back. How hard it was to watch over you, not knowing if you’d ever open your eyes again. Even Auria wasn’t sure.”

Eres frowns at her, but she is listening. She is listening, and that is all that Serana can ask for.

“At first, it was just like you were sleeping. We thought…” Serana remembers those first few days. Eres had slept so peacefully, then, that they had made such lofty assumptions of her condition. They could not have been more wrong.

“We thought maybe you just needed rest. We knew Coldharbour would have exhausted you, long before we ever found you. So we took care of you. And we waited. We thought, after a few days, that you would wake. But then the nightmares started. You would fit in your sleep, fighting off things we couldn’t see. You talked about things that didn’t make sense, people who weren’t there…”

She shakes her head, staring down at her lap. She doesn’t like to remember Eres, that way. “You had seizures, a few times. Gave Auria a black eye, even, when she tried to keep you from hurting yourself.”

The memory is almost funny, now. Or it would have been, had the experience not been so harrowing. She can only remember the fear in Auria’s eyes as the woman had pleaded her for help in holding her down, and knowing, then—knowing that Eres was worse off than any of them had thought she would be.

“That’s when Auria started giving you the draught. Partly to help you sleep, yes. But mostly because it kept you docile. It stopped the seizures. We’re still not sure why you had them. Auria didn’t want to delve into your mind while you were unconscious. She thought it might do more harm than good, with your mind already as fragile as it was. She hoped, by putting you into a deeper sleep, that your mind would have the rest it needed to heal more quickly.”

“The point,” Serana says, looking up at her, “is that, there was a while there where I didn’t know if I’d ever get to see you again. _You_ ,” she says, “not the husk of you that Coldharbour spit out. Even when you woke, that day, I was almost afraid to let you sleep again that night. I thought, what if _this_ is the last time I speak to her? You woke, and you seemed fine, but—that’s not altogether unusual. Sometimes that can happen, with people—right before they die. Their condition seems to improve, they seem to be getting better… and then suddenly it’s all over. Just like that. I was afraid to get my hopes up.”

“I’m here now, though.” Eres says to her gently. “I’m here now.”

“You are,” Serana agrees. “But for how long, Eres?” When Eres frowns at her, she continues, “How long are you going to be here, if you keep throwing yourself into danger around every corner? If you don’t start _thinking_ before you do things that might get you killed?”

“It wouldn’t have killed me.”

And Eres sounds so _sure_ about that. And maybe she is. Serana isn’t.

“Maybe not physically,” is what Serana says to her. “But your mind is still fragile, Eres. I know it might not seem like it to you. But it is. Coldharbour wasn’t that long ago. You _still_ can’t remember anything from it, and no—I’m not asking you to try. You can’t remember anything, and you mantled a _God_ , and you went through _how many_ Breaks on your own before Isran and Inigo even found you? We have no idea how much damage that did to you, and you had _divinity_ to protect you then. You don’t have that now. You’re _mortal_ , now. More than you were in Coldharbour. Maybe it wouldn’t have killed you. But it could have taken you from me, all the same. And you didn’t even—you didn’t even _say anything_.”

There is a change, in Eres then. There is a shift of something palpable, of something that breaks away in her eyes, that opens her features in a way that Serana has never seen before—and, in seeing it now, that she hopes she never sees again. There is a sheen, to her eyes, a certain fear behind them, a desperation, a pleading—

“Don’t leave me,” Eres whispers to her, as if she could ever have thought of doing such a thing. “I’m sorry,” she manages, through a voice that sounds watery and half-broken. “I’m sorry, just don’t—”

Serana pulls her in, pulls her against her, and somehow it feels almost like the pain in her own heart is a mirror of what she had seen in Eres’ eyes. “I’m not going to leave you, idiot. I’m asking _you_ not to leave _me_.”

Eres breathes against her, a shuddering breath that is not quite tearful, but close. Serana holds her, there, for the few short minutes it takes before Eres has calmed, until she can almost sense the way that Eres pushes that vulnerability deep inside her, locked away.

When Eres pulls away from her again, it is only to wipe to moisture of unshed tears from her eyelashes, a look on her face that is somewhere halfway between irritated and bashful.

“Sorry,” Eres mutters. “Sorry, just—” she takes a breath. Her voice is steadier when she speaks again, punctuated with a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “The only time anyone’s ever given me a speech like that has been before they left. I just, I thought…” Eres does not look her in the eyes. She watches as Eres shakes her head, watches as she blames herself for her reaction. Eres clears her throat, then, and it is complete.

Eres has pushed it away, pushed it down—and there she is again. Frustrated with herself, perhaps. Embarrassed. But it is her Eres, the girl that she loves. Not the part where she hides - that, Serana could do without.

But the part where there is an unspoken strength in her, the same strength she’d seen at Whitewatch when Fellburg had been razed. The same strength Serana has seen time and time again. There is a cost for this strength - but now it is one that Serana can see through, can see that it is embarrassment that motivates it here, fluster not anger or sorrow.

Serana allows it, this time, because she looks into Eres’ eyes and still sees Eres there, the girl she loves, in all her openness - flustered, perhaps. But not guarded. 

“I’m sorry. About what happened before. I wasn’t thinking—I wasn’t thinking enough about how it would make you feel. I just, I got it in my head, and I didn’t even consider…”

“It’s not about how you made me feel, really.” Eres sends her a doubtful look, and Serana returns it with a wry smirk of her own. “Alright, it is, a little bit.” The smirk fades. “I was terrified I was going to lose you. That’s true. What’s more important is that you don’t just think about _me_ , Eres. Think about yourself, too. Think about the effect it will have on _you_.”

But at that, Eres just looks at her, and the look she gives her is one that is so thoroughly resigned, so defeated, so—almost _pitying_ , in its way, that Serana can only stare back at her.

“It’s not about me, Serana. There are _millions_ of people out there who will die if I don’t do what I have to do. If I don’t step up. Whatever happens to me…” Eres smiles at her, then, but it is not one that reaches her eyes. It is a smile that makes Serana’s own heart feel like it might just shatter in her chest. “Whatever happens to me doesn’t matter, in the long run. Not when you pit it against all the people who might die otherwise. What’s one life against millions?”

“ _Your_ life means more to me than millions.” Serana does not snap at her. She does not yell. But she will make sure that Eres hears her, one way or another. “This world isn’t worth saving to me if you’re not going to be in it.”

Eres looks at her, blinks, and suddenly - she starts to laugh.

Serana scowls at her. “What the hell is so funny to you?”

“Sorry, that was—” Eres straightens, schooling her features to neutrality once more—or a very poor attempt at it, anyways. There is still marked amusement in her eyes, on her lips, and Serana could not have truly been mad at her if she tried. Eres’ laugh makes her chest feel light, makes her feel warm in ways she had not thought possible without magic. “That was very romantic of you, suddenly. It surprised me.”

“I can be romantic,” Serana mutters, unsure if she should be offended. Was it really so strange? She can certainly remember saying several things far more romantic than that—or had all of that been in her own head?

“Of course, _vhenan_.” The name warms her even more. Serana cannot help but to reach for her, but to pull her in and press a kiss to lips that part for her automatically. The taste of her reminds her of things she cannot have, yet, but one day…

“I mean it, you know.” Serana murmurs to her, into lips that smile against her own. “If it's between you and the world - I’d choose you. I’ll always choose you.”


	14. Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HALF A FUCKIN MILLION LADS

When Serana wakes to the sound of Eres mumbling in her sleep, she does not immediately panic. Eres has always slept fitfully, even long before Coldharbour. It had not been long after they had first met that Serana had realized this, baring witness to a girl who tossed and turned and mumbled low in her sleep.

Serana knows, too, that such symptoms were not even altogether uncommon - parasomnias were not incredibly unusual, though Eres had been the first case of such a thing she had seen with her own eyes.

After Coldharbour, of course, it had gotten worse. Eres sometimes went entire days without sleeping. Sometimes she persisted on nothing more than a few-hours long nap, and would remain awake until she could no longer keep her eyes open. Inevitably, she would tire, and the more exhausted Eres was when she finally fell to sleep, the less likely it was that she would sleep fitfully, too exhausted to even dream.

Hearing Eres talk in her sleep, therefore, had not been immediate cause for panic. Sometimes, it could even be amusing—once, Eres had expressed disappointment that horses, in fact, were just large dogs without the fluff, and therefore not nearly as important. Or another time, she had uttered a long, almost thoughtful humming, followed simply by: _“Shit.”_

Perhaps part of the reason Serana so often did not mind sleeping with Eres was that, if nothing else, it could be entertaining.

Normally.

Normally, Serana would think nothing of it.

Normally, Eres has not just thrown herself headlong into a Dragon Break without warning.

Eres does not answer when she calls her name. Once or twice, Serana has even managed to hold incomprehensible conversations with Eres in her sleep - prompting responses that make little sense, or devolve into disjointed mumblings. That morning, Eres does not do even that much.

That morning, Serana rises to the sound of her voice, attempts to rouse her, and is thoroughly unsuccessful.

“This isn’t funny, Eres.” Even as she says it, she knows that Eres would not play a joke like this on her. Eres is not the type to pull such cruel pranks on someone, especially not Serana herself.

Serana knows this, and still, she clings to the thought that maybe, this once, maybe it could be a joke. Maybe it would not be real. Maybe her worst fear has not come true.

“Eres!”

She shouts at her, shakes her, tries and a dozen and one ways to wake her. When she lifts Eres’ hand high into the air, there is a part of her that does not want the confirmation. She does not want to test it, this way, not when there would be no denying the results. Not when she could no longer pretend it is a cruel joke.

But she must, and so she does.

She releases her hold around Eres’ wrist, and watches, heart sinking, as the hand falls to gravity, dropping at once to Eres’ chin—with no indication that Eres had tried to shift its course.

Serana tries another method, and another—a rubbing of her knuckle at the hard point of her sternum. A pinching of her fingers at the sensitive skin at the back of her upper arm.

Eres does not react to Serana’s voice, to her body being moved, not even to painful stimuli.

Eres is not asleep.

She is unconscious.

In an instant, Serana is on the other side of the room, staring at her, breath coming in short bursts, cursing herself—she should have _known_. She should have known better than to let Eres sleep without examining her. She should have known better than to allow her to sleep when she had not been checked for what damage the Break may have caused her.

She _should have known_.

She _had_ known. She had! She’d known it would harm her. She’d known before Eres had done it. That was the very _reason_ she’d been so upset—she’d known the dangers, the consequences it might have.

She’d fooled herself into thinking that, that because Eres had walked down the mountain on her own, because she had sat there and spoken with her as though everything had been normal—she’d fooled herself into thinking that meant it was safe. That _Eres_ was safe.

She should have known. Eres had been plenty functional all throughout Coldharbour. Isran and Inigo had guarded her along her journey to seek out such Breaks and set them to course and she had seemed _fine_ , until the last. Until she had emerged from the final one, and collapsed at last as it had all caught up with her at once.

Serana had _known_ she was not fully recovered. They all had, but Eres was so stubborn and headstrong that she would not sit idly by and wait to heal properly. She would not just wander aimlessly about the Keep when there was work to be done. That just wasn’t the kind of person that Eres is. And then after what had happened to Fellburg, they’d had not a moment to rest since—Eres had been working herself to exhaustion, day after day after day, and now—

Now, it had caught up with her again. Just as Serana feared that it would.

Could she have stopped it? Could she have stopped _her_? Could she have done anything to prevent it, to keep this from happening?

That, Serana does not know.

Ten minutes.

Serana allows herself ten minutes to feel it, to let it overwhelm her—the fear, the despair, the utter devastation of the thought that Eres may never wake again—for ten minutes, she allows that pain to consume her. But only ten.

She allows herself ten minutes, and not a minute more, because Eres—Eres is counting on her, and she is not lost just yet. Serana can help her, still, just not _here_.

Serana allows herself ten minutes to feel it, but it takes several minutes more for her to steady herself. There is no one to witness it, no one but Eres’ unconscious form, and the silent walls of the temple around them.

In the wake of it, when she has pulled herself together, Serana gathers her things. Her things, and Eres’. She calls upon the training her mother had instilled in her, her knowledge of medicine and the body and mind she had studied for the sake of necromancy, but could now be used for _good_ , too. For Eres’ good.

Serana dresses herself, first. Dons her armor. Prepares both her own bag and Eres’, and she is certain to find the journal she had thrown and tuck it safely into a pocket where it will not be lost. She must show it to them, for they may be able to discern something from it that Serana cannot.

Only once she is fully dressed and both their bags are packed and placed on the desk by the door does Serana turn again to Eres.

She breathes without assistance. If Serana were only to look at her, she could not have told from a glance that Eres is unconscious, and not simply sleeping peacefully. Even the soft mumbles that had brought Serana out of her own daydreams had ceased, for the moment, and now Eres lays still beneath the covers, her expression deceptively serene. Almost peaceful.

Serana takes a breath. She steadies herself once more.

She goes to Eres' side, with her clothes and armor in hand. Dressing an unconscious body is not something she has any sort of experience with, but she manages. She does not remove Eres’ nightclothes, but pulls her other clothes atop them. Trousers over the short hose that Eres wears to bed, for she often gets hot in her sleep, and does not like the feeling of her pant leg slipping to cover her feet—for she never bothers to tailor them properly, and only tucks them into her boots instead. She holds Eres against her as she pulls her robes over limp arms, and each step of her dressing is but a reminder of how far her love is from her, now.

When Eres is dressed, cloak and boots and all that she will need to keep warm, Serana cannot help but take a moment to hold her close, if only to assure herself with the feeling of her chest rising against her own. In, and out. Eres sleeps on.

She is alive. That is what Serana must focus on. No matter what else may happen, no matter what help she may need—she is _alive_ , and Serana must be grateful for even that. She must be, because if she is alive, then there is hope—and that is all she can ask for.

Serana leaves her on the bed to place her own satchel around her waist. She will need to carry Eres to Fellburg, and she will need to do it _fast_. She will not have time to stop to feed, and she will need the energy. Her mind is so far away from anything but her concern for Eres’ wellbeing that when she downs the final two vials of Eres’ blood, she hardly even registers the taste at all.

Then Serana returns to the bed, pulls Eres’ larger bag over Eres’ shoulders, and it is an awkward process to pull Eres onto her own back, where she might run more quickly. She sits on the edge of the bed, Eres’ arms dangling over her shoulders, and she pulls the tough leather straps of Eres’ own pack over her own shoulders, as well, fastening it so that its weight aids to keep Eres upright. It is all that she can do on such short notice.

Perhaps it is the steady, regular sound of Eres’ breath in her ear that gives her the strength to stand. To move. To walk out of those temple doors and charge, full speed, down the mountain path, at speeds she might not have employed had Eres been conscious. Serana pushes herself as fast as she can, and even that could not have been fast enough for the fear that grows ever stronger in her heart.

* * *

Auria pulls her hands from Eres’ temples, her expression deeply troubled.

“Well?”

“She may recover,” Auria says quietly. She lifts herself from the bed, clasping her hands before her, but the expression on her face does not clear.

Serana’s chest tightens. “ _May_?”

“It is too soon to know just yet.” Auria sighs. “You say this did not happen immediately following the—what was it?”

“Time Wound—that’s what Paarthurnax called it. The dragon at the Throat of the World,” she adds, seeing the woman’s confusion. “He’s supposedly the leader of the Greybeards or—something to that effect. I don’t know. He said it was where the ancient Nords had used an Elder Scroll to send Alduin forward in time.”

 _“Forward_ in time?” Mirabelle tuts under her breath. “So they simply pushed the problem onto us.”

“Seems that way. Eres, she…” Serana tries not to remember the sight of Eres’ eyes glazing over, of the way she had fallen to her knees before her. She should have known. “Eres said the Time Wound reached for her - that it had something to show her. Paarthurnax thought we would need the Scroll for her to be able to … use the Break to see what had happened there, for her to learn Dragonrend.”

“How very strange…” Mirabelle murmurs quietly. “How was it she was able to do such a thing without the Scroll at hand? This is not Coldharbour.”

Serana nods. She tries to keep herself from wringing her hands, from pacing, and she can do neither.

“Eres read that scroll before, when we were trying to find the location of Auriel’s Bow. The Dragon scroll that Septimus lead us to. I suppose, somehow…”

“Perhaps some residual of its power remained within her, after she read it,” Mirabelle muses, but even she does not look entirely convinced.

“Speaking of Septimus.” Mirabelle and Auria both look to her, brows raised. Serana pulls the journal from the satchel at her hip. “This was in Eres’ bag. I found it while I was looking for paper to write on. It’s—it’s utterly incomprehensible. Just like Septimus’ writings.”

“Do you believe it to be connected?” Auria asks, reaching for it. Her brow furrows as she opens it, thumbing through the pages. “This looks like the writings of a madwoman…”

“I know.” Serana sighs. “Eres didn’t even seem to recognize it. Not the writing, or the journal itself. She didn’t remember writing any of it.”

“Are you sure it was Eres who wrote it?” Mirabelle asks, doubtfully.

“It’s her handwriting.” Serana is familiar with Eres’ room. She needs no guidance to walk to her desk, to pull one of the drawers and open one of the little black books Eres kept there—old reports from her time as a Vigilant that she had brought with her, following her retirement. She flips it to a random page, holds it open beside the other. “The handwriting is similar. Look here.”

Mirabelle looks between the both of them, and nods, her expression tightening. “I believe you may be right,” she says. “And you say she did not remember penning anything within this journal? Did you ever see her write within it?”

“Never,” Serana confirms. “She would write in journals when she was a Vigilant, when I first met her - reports, I imagine, of what she was working on, like this one. But I haven’t seen her do it since Coldharbour. Whenever she must have written this, it wasn’t any time that I was around her.”

Mirabelle frowns. “Are we certain that this is not from Coldharbour, itself?” She asks. “She already does not remember much of her time there. It is possible.”

“Possible,” Serana admits, “but unlikely. I don’t remember her having anything on her aside from her robes and Dawnbreaker, when she returned.” She looks to Auria for confirmation - she had not been in the room when Auria had bathed her. Auria nods. “I assumed it was written sometime after Coldharbour. Some of the pages there, at least, seemed to be related to things she experienced there.”

Serana takes the journal from Mirabelle, flipping to the only two of its pages she has any context on.

“This one—Eres told me about this person. Mary—I believe it was someone she encountered in Coldharbour, possibly related to the followers of Mara. She told me a bit about them, once, but I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. And this one, here,” Serana flips several pages backwards, to the rough, almost violent drawings of the Stone. “She said this one looked like the Stone.”

“Mira,” Auria says quickly. “Bring Isran. He would know more.”

Mirabelle nods without question. “It will take me a moment.” When Serana looks at her, she explains, “He went to visit the Fort, in the time you were away. Luckily, I had thought to place a Circle there when last I visited. It shan’t be but a moment.”

And so they wait.

Auria sits again at the edge of Eres’ bed, reaching a hand to brush the hair from Eres’ brow. “She was fine until she went to sleep?”

“Yes.” Serana stops pacing. She clasps her hands tightly together. Auria would be right to blame her. Serana certainly blames herself enough for the both of them. “She seemed fine. Confused about the journal, but—fine, otherwise. We talked a little before bed. She drifted off eventually. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“And this morning you could not wake her?”

“I heard her talking in her sleep.” Auria’s frown deepens. “She’s done that since before Coldharbour. It just happened more often afterwards,” she clarifies. “I didn’t want to think anything of it, but—after what happened, I tried to wake her, just in case. She didn’t respond to any stimuli. That’s when I brought her here.”

“But otherwise no symptoms?” Auria asks. “No increased anxiety, perhaps? Vertigo? Anything at all?”

“Nothing.” Had she not found the journal, Serana might not have suspected it so quickly. She might have waited longer to bring her, not wanting to wake Eres in the middle of the night. She might have wasted even more time. “I brought her here as soon as I was able.”

Auria nods. “That is good,” she says. When Serana’s frown only deepens, Auria holds her gaze fiercely. “That is _good_ ,” she insists. “Even if her condition does deteriorate, I will be able to keep her stable until we find a solution. For now, she is stable enough without interference - the less hand I have within her mind, the better. It is always better to allow a mind to heal naturally. But should worse come to worst… It is good she is here, where I am able to help her.”

“You did well,” Auria tells her, as if Serana could ever have believed that.

“If I did well, I wouldn’t have allowed her to—”

“You could not have stopped her, I fear.” Auria shakes her head. “If she is half as stubborn as I am - as I know her to be - nothing you said or did short of knocking her unconscious yourself would have stopped her from entering that Break. You did all you could.”

Serana does not believe that. But she doesn’t want to argue it, because Auria will only insist upon assuring her. Assurances are not what she wants, now. She wants _answers_.

* * *

“Stendarr’s Mercy,” is the first thing that Isran says when Mirabelle returns to the room with him in tow, some time later.

Serana does not waste time saying hello. She shoves the journal into Isran’s waiting hands. “Do you recognize anything in here?”

Isran’s eyes linger on Eres’ prone form for only a moment. For a moment, he allows himself to show concern - and then he is all business, scowling down at the pages of the journal before him. “This one’s the Stone,” he points out immediately. “And this one…” His frown deepens. He flips through several more pages. “These are all from Coldharbour, but I don’t recognize all of them.”

“Just tell us what you _do_ know.”

“Well,” Isran flips to a page with the strange, disjointed phrases written haphazardly across it. “These phrases. She’d repeat them to herself in Coldharbour. They had something to do with the memories she was seeking out. There were only three of them left when we found her, so I don’t recognize all of them. This one— _madness sets with the moons_. Something about a crazy old cat-king in a mansion. I’m not sure what the phrases _meant_ , exactly, only that when she finished one of these - memories, she spoke of, she would stop repeating one of the phrases. And so on, and so forth.”

Isran flips to another page, one with more circular diagrams, but with a slightly different shape. “This is the Eye. She carried it on her.” Isran gestures to his neck. “In a pouch. Not sure what the hell it was for. She said it guided her while she was there, after she came to herself. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

“Is there anything in that journal that stands out to you?”

Isran shakes his head. “Not really. But,” his frown deepens. "She didn’t have any journal on her in Coldharbour. Didn’t have any time for that sort of thing.”

“So she wrote this after.” Serana had hoped not to hear that. She had _hoped_ that perhaps Isran had seen her with it while he was there, and just none of them had noticed on her return, too preoccupied with caring for her.

“You mean to tell me that _you_ _’ve_ never seen her write in this, either?” Isran asks her, doubtful. “The two of you are attached at the hip.”

“Apparently not.” Serana mutters. She takes the journal back from him. She hates the weight of it in her hands. “I’ve never seen her write in it. We’ve been apart now and then, but…”

“Hmm…” Mirabelle says suddenly, and all eyes turn to her. “Forgive the intrusion, Serana, but—you sleep with her, do you not?”

Serana is not even of the mind to be embarrassed by the question. “Most of the time, yes. Even before then, since she returned, I’ve usually been close by at night, even if I’m not in the room myself. Outside of times we’ve separated for one reason or another.”

“Have you noticed any unusual behavior when she sleeps?”

Serana might have laughed, in any other situation. She does not, now. “She’s always had trouble sleeping - even before Coldharbour. Nightmares. Tossing and turning. Waking up in the middle of the night. Sometimes it took her hours to fall asleep at all. She talks in her sleep, at times, but it doesn’t happen often. Well,” she sighs. “It happened more often after Coldharbour. And now it’s started up again.”

“Have you ever seen her sleep _walk_?” Mirabelle asks.

Serana frowns. “No. I think I’d have noticed if it went that far. Do you have some idea of what this might be?”

“An idea, yes. A theory. One that, sadly, cannot be proven.” Mirabelle crosses her arms over her chest, frowning thoughtfully. “There have been reports of those who walk in their sleep - carry out every day function while completely unconscious. It _is_ especially rare, but it does happen at times for those with sleep disorders. It would not be out of the realm of possibility for Eres to have developed a similar condition. One that perhaps does not take place when she has company. And that,” she adds, her frown deepening further, “is assuming this is a natural occurrence.”

Isran sinks into a nearby seat, bracing his hands on his knees. “Something tells me you’re going to tell us some bad news.”

“Not necessarily. It is just a theory, and one I am unsure if I would be able to prove at all, one way or another. The way I see it, there are two distinct possibilities for this journal: One, that it is, unfortunately, a progression of Eres’ already disordered sleeping. Perhaps she sleepwalks, and no one has caught her doing so yet. And when she does, perhaps she ‘writes’,” she quotes, “within the journal - snippets of dreams, or perhaps memories of Coldharbour that she cannot recall with her waking mind.”

“Is that even possible?” Serana asks. “If she can’t recall it while she’s awake…”

“The subconscious mind is capable of incredible things.” Mirabelle states. “It is possible that the journal is an attempt for her subconscious to communicate with her waking mind - writing what she remembers within the journal, so that Eres might one day read it and remember what has happened to her, herself. However, even I will admit the idea is far-fetched. It’s _possible_ , though not incredibly likely.”

“And the second possibility?” Auria asks.

“The second possibility is that it is not _Eres_ who writes them at all. Or rather, it is Eres’ _body_ who writes them, but not her mind. Perhaps the reason no one has _seen_ her doing this, is that whatever is doing it is intelligent enough to avoid detection. Some entity beyond our understanding, directing her movements while she sleeps. I would consider this even more impossible than the first, were it not for the fact that Eres has already had plenty of experience with divine entities interfering with her life here on Nirn.

“More to that end,” Mirabelle adds, voice lowering, “I do not like its resemblance to Septimus’ ravings. I do not wish to believe the two are connected, but… It is also true that Septimus was once a brilliant man, whose mind, at some point, was stolen from him. At the College, it was common rumor that perhaps Septimus had involved himself in affairs well beyond his understanding, and his mind suffered as a result as he grasped for that which he could not hold.”

“Sounds _far_ too familiar for my liking,” Isran mutters. “What do we know about this Septimus?”

“Not much,” Serana answers. “Eres and I hunted him down because he had information on the location of one of the Elder Scrolls we needed Dexion to read. We found him, but,” she shakes her head. “He was completely incomprehensible. He _did_ end up being right, but it was impossible to get a straight answer out of him for anything.”

“Unfortunately,” Mirabelle says quietly, “Septimus may be one of our only leads. His _Ruminations_ are remarkably similar to Eres’ own … journal,” she says, diplomatically. “It may be that their conditions are somehow related.”

Isran looks to Serana. “Do you know where he is now?”

“Still hiding in the ice floes, I imagine.” Serana’s mood darkens further. She hadn’t thought that possible, at this point. “But we’re not going to manage to get anything out of him. I can promise you that.”

“Perhaps not.” Mirabelle agrees. “But, it is possible they suffer from the same condition - only that Septimus’ may be more advanced. Perhaps speaking with him may yield some information we may be able to use to help Eres.”

Serana looks between them - all of them, looking at her expectantly, and scowls. “I’m _not_ leaving her here to track down some madman.”

“You’re the one who’s met with him before,” Isran says carefully. “You also know where to find him, and, given that you’ve interacted with him once already, he may have some trust for you that he wouldn’t for anyone else. Not to mention,” he adds, “you would be able to get there faster than any of us.”

“ _You_ go to him,” Serana snaps, glaring at Mirabelle. “You can teleport. You’d be just as fast as I am.”

“Septimus did not leave the College in good standing,” Mirabelle replies. “I am afraid he would likely not welcome my presence, if he should remember that I was one of those who voted in favor of his severance.”

“Severance?”

Mirabelle sighs. “Septimus was once an esteemed member of the College. Unfortunately, he took it upon himself to read one of the Elder Scrolls we once had in our possession. He lost his mind, and his _teachings_ ,” her lip curls into a grimace, “began to place our students in danger. We were forced to expel him from the College. This, of course, was many years ago now. However, it may be that he would still remember the council who voted him out. He likely would not take kindly to my presence, as I was one of those most adamant about his removal.”

“The only other option is Valerica,” Isran says to her, and he does not have to explain why that would not work.

Serana knows better than most. Her mother has no patience for the likes of madmen. Were Valerica to be the one who tracked down Septimus, there is little chance the result would be anything productive.

Not that Serana believes _she_ can do much better, but—

“Eres will be safe here.” Auria stands, and comes to her, and when she takes Serana’s hands into her own, Serana must struggle not to gape at her. “She will have the best care that we may offer her. It may be that she will wake, soon,” she admits. “Or it may be that she will not. In the meantime, we must do what we can to preserve her mind - even if that means seeking out a man whose mind has already been lost long ago.”

“I will also remain here until your return.” Mirabelle says. “Perhaps I may be able to discern something of use from her journal—with your help, of course,” she says, looking at Isran.

Isran nods. “I’ll do what I can. But we don’t know everything she saw there. Probably not even half of it.” He sighs, but looks to Serana. “We’ll take care of her, Serana. You go to Septimus, and figure out what he might know of this. Or, at the very least—figure out what happened to him. It might give us some insight as to what we can expect.”

“I can’t just…”

Auria hugs her, then, and she is so taken aback by the gesture that she does not even think to respond to it.

“Please,” Auria implores her, “it will not take you long to find him. We can watch over her, but Septimus may be our only chance of finding out how we might stop Eres’ mind from deteriorating as his did. You love her, do you not?” Auria pulls back to look her in the eyes.

Serana swallows. She does not have to answer in words. It is already plainly obvious to anyone who looks at her.

“Do it for her, then,” Auria tells her. “For her.”

_For her._

Auria knows it as well as Serana does. There is nothing she won’t do for her. Serana would follow her to the ends of the earth, and beyond. Being apart from her, now, when Eres needs her most—that will be harder than anything she has ever done.

“If anything should happen,” Auria promises her, “Mira will come for you at once. But _I_ will keep her alive, one way or another. So long as I breathe, so shall she.”

* * *

They give her a moment alone with her before she leaves. It is not a long moment, but it is a moment nonetheless. It is a moment in time that Serana wishes could have stretched into a space long enough that she might have been able to come to terms with the fact that where Eres needs her now is _not_ by her side - though she can think of nowhere else she would rather be.

She does not know if Eres can hear her, but she speaks to her all the same. If there is even a chance that Eres can, Serana wants to make sure that she knows - that she knows Serana is leaving for _her_ sake, to find Septimus, to help her - if there is even the smallest chance that finding Septimus might reveal something about Eres’ condition, how they can help her recover from it… or at the very least, how they might keep her from a fate like his. Mad and alone in a world that no longer understands him.

Serana still doesn’t know how much Septimus will be able to help, if it all. But if Eres knew—if it was Eres who had discovered that something had taken Septimus’ mind from him, and there might be a way to get it _back_ —Eres would not hesitate. She would help him because she could, and that was that.

That was that. That simple. That easy. That _inherently good_. That was _Eres_ , not her.

Serana is not a hero. She might be a bit of one, by association - but she is not one, naturally, in the way that Eres is. In the way that she feels compelled to help even those she does not know. She is not _evil_ , by any means. She is just… neutral. Measured. She is only one person, and she can only do so much. She focuses her energy where it matters, on the people she cares for—on the woman she loves.

Knowing that she must do it and _wanting_ to do it are very different things.

Serana does not _want_ to leave her. She does not want to leave Eres’ side _normally_ , let alone when she is… indisposed. Possibly hurting. Possibly fading away. There is nothing she wants less than to leave her here, no matter how much she knows she can trust those who will care for her in her absence. It doesn’t matter that Yosef and Johanna are here, or Auria, or even Serana’s own mother—they aren’t _Serana_.

She can’t be here for her, now, and somehow that feels like a failure no matter what the reasoning might be. Eres has to know. She has to make sure she knows—she’s doing it for _her_.

Serana sits beside her on the bed, where she lies silent and unmoving. Serene, even. It takes some time for her to even find the words, for her to put her thoughts in order and vocalize them where Eres can hear her, can know her. Can feel her.

“This is my fault.” She starts with, because it is. She’d known how dangerous the Break would be, and she should have brought her to Fellburg immediately. She should have allowed Auria to examine her long before she allowed Eres to sleep so soon after the damage of flinging herself back through time. She should have done more to protect her, to keep her safe. To keep her _here_.

“I didn’t do enough,” she admits. Her voice escapes her as barely more than a whisper, wracked with equal parts guilt and sorrow. This is _her fault_. “I should have done more for you. I should have known the effect it would have on you, after Coldharbour. Maybe if I’d gotten you here sooner, before…”

She doesn’t know if that would have worked either, really. She’s not sure that anything would have. But there is the possibility that it might have - and that is enough for her to blame herself for. That is enough for her to feel as though she has fallen short.

“They’re going to watch over you while you’re here. Auria will be monitoring you.” Facts. Keep her informed - Serana does not know if anyone else will. If Eres can hear her, at least she will know. “I’m going to find Septimus and see what he knows. Or…” It’s possible Septimus doesn’t know anything. It’s possible the conditions are just _similar_ , not related. “If he’s suffered the same thing you are now… Maybe he still remembers how it started. Maybe I’ll be able to get something out of him.”

It’s farfetched, she knows. She doesn’t even know if _she_ believes it possible. But—

“It’s the only lead we’ve got, right now.”

What else can they do? Just sit on their hands and wait for Eres to get better? Wait for her to wake up again and do nothing to prevent another occurrence? What would happen the next time? Would there eventually be a time she wouldn’t wake up at all?

Would she even wake up _now_?

Those are answers she doesn’t have. Answers she’s not sure _Septimus_ would have. But if perhaps she can convince him to leave his post, bring him back to Fellburg, allow Auria to examine _him_ as well—perhaps Auria might be able to map out the similarities in their conditions, find some way to treat it, find some way to halt its progress before it reaches a point of no return.

It feels hopeless. The only lead they have, and it’s _him?_ Of all people? There’s not even any guarantee that anything Septimus _could_ tell her would be legitimate. The man was out of his mind, after all.

But it is a chance. However miniscule. Serana will take whatever chance she can get.

Even if that means leaving her side, now, at a moment when she could not have imagined doing so otherwise.

If there’s even a _chance_ that finding Septimus could lead them to discovering a way to salvage Eres’ mind, then… Serana will take those chances. She’ll welcome them with open arms. She’ll do whatever she can. She’ll leave no stone unturned, no avenue unexplored.

Septimus is just the first step on what might be a very long journey. The beginning. A starting point.

It is somewhere to _start_ , and that is what matters.

“Wait for me, Eres.” Serana presses her lips to the back of a warm hand. Alive. She is alive. That’s what’s important. “Don’t go anywhere. Not without me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't kill me


	15. Unforeseen

Traveling without Eres feels as though she has lost a part of herself, like Eres had been a limb she had spent her entire life not knowing that she was missing, and now that she is without it, she is utterly and entirely off balance.

It is not that she hasn’t traveled without Eres since her return from Coldharbour – on the contrary, they have separated multiple times since then, and even multiple times since they had become more than just people who loved each other from a safe distance.

But before, when Serana was away from Eres, it was with the knowledge that she was alive and well, that she would be safe – or, at least, that Eres could protect herself from whatever dangers might come her way.

There is a difference in that separation now, where Serana is apart from her, but it is the first time she has been apart from Eres without the security of knowing that Eres will be alright when she returns. Without the knowledge that Eres is out there, fighting, living, breathing, being _Eres_ —even if she is doing so without Serana nearby.

It is a muted fear that lives beneath her skin, that curls and shifts and crawls just below the surface, that turns her thoughts darker than she can remember them being since – since before she had met her, probably.

It is the unknown that bothers her most. The _not knowing_ of it. The uncertainty. The knowledge that she has no knowledge at all, that she knows nothing, that she may never know anything, that her search may be fruitless, may be pointless, that nothing she might do could help in the end.

Serana tries not to think of it. She turns her mind away from the darkest corners, from the worst case scenarios. She stops thinking in _what ifs_ and starts thinking in _what can be done_ , now.

But there is still that absence, there, that empty cavern somewhere inside her, seeming to grow larger and more painful with each passing minute, with each second, with each instant that she spends apart from her.

It is an absence that even Septimus, the madman, notices, when she finds him at last. 

“You,” he breathes, holding his arms wide. His eyes travel from her head to her toes, up again, and then flit around the room, searching for a person who would not appear. “Where is the light? The light that guides you? So dark, it is here, without the light—it is—”

“Shut up.” She knows. He doesn’t have to tell her how dark it is. She’s _living it._

Serana digs into her pack, produces the runed lexicon, and holds it in one hand. She waits until he notices it, waits until his eyes widen, brighten at the sight of it, as his lips spread into a wide, almost maniacal grin. He reaches for it, breathless—and she pulls it away, holding it far out of his reach.

“The lexico—”

“Listen.” She orders him. “I’m not here for this stupid thing. I don’t care about it. But you’re not getting it until _I_ get answers. Your book—do you remember writing it?”

Septimus’ eyes are still on the lexicon in her hands. But now he is frowning, his brows furrowed low over dark eyes. “No…” He murmurs, shaking his head. “No, the key—the key, it is…”

“ _Septimus!_ ” His eyes snap to hers, at last. For a moment, there is something in them that is almost like lucidity. “Your _book_ —Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls. Do you remember writing it?”

“Ah… The Elder Scrolls, yes… yes, the knowledge—the knowledge that is not knowledge at all. It is nothing.” He shakes his head. “Nothing compared to the Dwemer. The Dwemer in the beyond, the box…”

Serana eyes the structure behind him, the Dwemer ‘box’ he has been so keen to open since the day they met him. He is thinner, now, somehow seeming even more mad than he had been the first time she’d met him—but the box has not changed. It still remains where it sits, utterly still and unyielding.

“This box,” she says slowly, “does it have something to do with that book of yours? Is that why you wrote it? Or,” she considers aloud, eying him, “Is it that you wrote that book after you found this?”

“The book is not important, no, not in the grand scale of things, on the cosmological scale, on the divine scale — it is nothing, nothing but a book, nothing but a dream. Nothing at all. Nothing. Nothing, you see? But this, the box, it is—it is the world, it is everything. It is the secrets—the thing I have been hunting for! I have been made for this!”

“What’s _in_ this box?”

“Ahhh,” he breathes, smiling as though she has just asked him the very question he had most wanted to answer. “The box contains the _Heart._ The very essence of a god! I have devoted my life to the Elder Scrolls, but their knowledge is a passing awareness when compared to the encompassing mind of divinity. The Dwemer were the last to touch it. And I will be the next!” He declares with glee.

Then, conspiratorially, he lowers his voice, grinning almost impishly at her. “It was thought to have been destroyed by the Nerevarine, but my lord told me otherwise.”

 _That_ does not sound good. _Lord_? She almost doesn’t want to ask. There is a part of her that does not even want to know, that thinks she will be better off for _not_ knowing—but she must. If it had been this _lord_ of his that had set him on this track, that had put him to finding this _box_ —that had led him to writing his Ruminations, it could be that _that_ lord was also involved in Eres’ own condition.

Serana’s expression twists into a grimace, dread curling low in her stomach. Could they really be so unlucky? It would not be Molag Bal, that she is sure of - Septimus is not a vampire, and she is certain she would be able to tell if he had been influenced by _Him_ , of all Princes. But could it really be that yet _another_ Daedric Prince had taken an interest in Eres? To what end? _Why?_

“Who is this ‘lord’ of yours?”

Septimus smiles at her. “The Daedric Prince of the Unknown—” and already Serana is pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand, groaning under her breath. Fucking— “Hermaeus Mora,” Septimus confirms.

“I thought there were no secrets left to know, until I first spoke to him! He asks a price, yes—to work his will. A few murders, some dissent spread, a plague or two.” Septimus shrugs, carelessly. “For the secrets, I can endure.

“In time, he brought me here. To the box. But…” His expression morphs into something almost like a petulant, childish pout. “He won’t reveal how to open it! _Maddening_!” He reaches for the Lexicon again, and again Serana holds it away.

“Do you know why he wants this box opened?” Serana asks him. “And these dreams you spoke of—”

“The dream is just a dream! It is nothing, nothing compared to the knowledge of the Dwemer, please!” Septimus shuffles closer, leaning one way and the other to peer at the lexicon she holds away from him. After a moment, he pulls back, frown deepening ever further.

“The sealing structure…” He murmurs. “It interlocks in the tiniest fractals. Dwemer blood can loose the hooks, but none alive remain to bear it! The box, the key—the key is missing! You must get the key for me!”

“I’m not doing _anything_ until you—”

“A panoply of their brethren could gather to form a facsimile!” Septimus barrels on, undeterred. “The blood of Altmer, Bosmer, Dunmer, Falmer, and Orsimer—the elves still living provide the key. Bear you hence this extractor.” He is half across the room almost before she realizes he has turned away, and in but a moment, he is back again, pressing a _very_ familiar looking extractor into her open hand. “It will drink the fresh blood of elves—”

Her heart clenches. She knows that. She knows how it works. _Fuck_ , but she knows.

“Come—return, come to me, the box, the Heart—when it is complete. Yes? Yes, it will be done—” And he turns away from her, mumbling to himself.

He does not even look again at the lexicon.

The lexicon that she had hoped to use as a focus point, as a bargaining chip, as something to keep his attention while she interrogated him—and now he is not even interested in it, because it is useless. She calls his name again, several times, and not once does he respond as though he has heard her.

Serana must restrain herself from throwing the lexicon at his head as he paces.

But she does not. She tucks it away in her bag. She looks down at the extractor he’d given her—not quite the same as that she had used with Eres, with compartments for storing the blood attached to it, instead—but there is no mistaking what it is.

It cannot be Molag Bal. Blood extractors such as this one are used everywhere, especially in medicine and even alchemy, when blood is sometimes used as part of a mixture, as a reagent - it is not altogether unusual for a mage to own one, especially not one who dabbled in the darker magics, such as Septimus likely did. He had also confirmed himself that it was _Hermaeus Mora_ who he served, not Molag Bal.

It is not Molag Bal. It is not _Him_ who has hold over Eres, but—

Could it be Hermaeus?

Serana paces, herself—she does not know if she can get anything more out of Septimus. She does not even know if it’s worth it to try. But she does need to at least _consider it_ , because she may not find another lead.

What was it that Septimus had said? Could she even make sense of any of it, relate it back to Eres’ own condition? Were there any clues in what he had said to her, now?

The _dream_ comes to mind first. She had asked him of his Ruminations, and Septimus had said— _nothing but a book, nothing but a dream_. Did that mean that he had _dreamed_ the things he had written in that book, the same way that Eres had, allegedly, dreamed what she had written in the journal? _The dream is just a dream._

But what did that _mean?_ What did any of it truly mean, in the long run? But—Serana cannot allow herself to be frustrated. She needs to _think_.

 _Think **back** , _she orders herself, scowling. _Back to the beginning._

Back to—back to Eres’ emergence from Coldharbour. No—no, sooner than that. What had Eres said about Coldharbour, right after she came out of whatever possession had taken hold of her? She had mentioned dreams then, too, hadn’t she? Had she called them dreams, back then? Or was that only _after_ Coldharbour, that she’d referred to them that way?

 _“It’s been guiding me to the memories.”_ She can still recall Eres’ voice in her mind. _“The dreams.”_

She stops in place, extractor in her hands, feeling an ache in her that she cannot even give name to.

_“There were these places—these places I had to go or felt like I had to go to, and they weren’t—they didn’t have memories, in them. There weren’t any dreams, there.”_

If the _dreams_ were more similar to a compulsion, some kind of _purpose_ that they weren’t able to refuse, from a higher being… Then could Mirabelle’s theory be true? Could Eres’ condition be caused by divine interference, somehow?

That would make sense for the _advent_ of the dreams, perhaps—while she was in Coldharbour, she’d had a purpose to serve. She’d mantled a God, and fulfilled his role in bringing Greymarch to Coldharbour, to set things back to the way they should be. But once that was over - if her purpose had been fulfilled, then why would she _still_ have such dreams?

Especially if those dreams seemed only to be about Coldharbour, itself? Eres herself had said that it was _Coldharbour_ , written there, not anything else. It wouldn’t make sense for some—divine being to continually push such things to her, if she could do nothing with them. Eres no longer had a purpose. The _dreams_ no longer served a purpose.

So why, then, did she still have them? Why now, suddenly, had this happened?

No—she must be honest with herself. She’d seen the journal. She’d flipped through it herself. That journal hadn’t been new. Eres must have been writing in it for _months_ on end, with none of them having noticed it. It was not a new issue at all. It was just something they knew of _now_ because Serana had found it before Eres had fallen again—

But then, what if that meant they were not related at all? Could it be that the two were merely coincidental, and not correlated? Serana does not want to think that is the case - that would leave her with even less leads than she has _now_ , and that’s saying something. But she must consider it as a possibility. The dreams, and Eres’ coma could be two completely unrelated things that just happened to become known at the same time.

 _Correlation does not equal causation_ , Serana hears in her mind, in her mother’s stern, cool voice. How many times had her own mother told her not to make assumptions of things just because they _seemed_ to be related? She’s smarter than this. She’s _better_ than this. But—she still doesn’t _want_ to believe they’re different.

She doesn’t want to believe they’re different, because finding _one_ answer would be hard enough. How can she hope to find _two_ when she cannot even find the first?

 _Fine_ , she thinks, stuffing the extractor into her bag. If she has to run errands for a madman to get the answers she needs to help Eres then… She’ll do it. She’ll do whatever it takes. She’ll bite her tongue and _deal_ with it. No matter how much it irritates her. No matter how pointless it feels.

Serana glances one last time at Septimus, at his fawning over the Dwemer contraption, and rolls her eyes. It would be just her luck to be stuck with a madman, wouldn’t it. Hadn’t her father been bad enough?

With a shake of her head, she turns, heading back for the entrance. If she can find a bandit camp or two nearby, it wouldn’t take her very long at all to find at least some of the blood she needs—usually there are both Bosmer and Orsimer within those groups. That would be two down, right there. As for the Thalmor, well—she certainly knows where she can find _them_. She’s hardly looking forward to hunting down the Falmer, of course, but it won’t take her long at all.

She can hunt down a few bandit camps for the extraction, and to recoup her energy, and head on towards Solitude for the Embassy—or perhaps that Keep just off the shore from the castle would be a better option. Not as much foot traffic around those parts, and it would certainly take a lot longer for any word to reach the Thalmor. The last thing she needs is to give them another reason to hunt her down. Then she could double back, go to Alftand, delve down until she reaches the Falmer, and she’d have all she needs.

Simple.

Or it should have been. It might have been simple, had she not ascended that ramp and nearly walked face first into a writhing mass of dark energy and—and fucking _tentacles_.

Serana stumbles back so quickly she nearly sends herself right off the edge at the top of the ramp.

The writhing mass _chuckles_.

 ** _“Come closer,”_** the mass murmurs, voice colored with amusement. It speaks so slowly it feels almost as though time itself has slowed around her. **_“Bask in my presence.”_**

Serana scowls at him. Or—she thinks she does, but she can’t actually tell where _he_ is—it? Does it even _have_ a gender? Whatever the fuck _it_ was, she cannot discern a face or eyes or anything of the sort within the writhing mass before her. Her stomach tightens to even _look_ at the thing, and in the most thoroughly unpleasant way that she can ever remember feeling in her life. She feels nauseous just for looking at it.

“I don’t think so,” she mutters to him. “I’m not Septimus. Your plaything is down _there_.”

The mass chuckles again, longer this time, sounding even more amused than before.

 ** _“I am Hermaeus Mora,”_** he introduces himself, needlessly, because she already knows damn well who it is. **_“Guardian of the unseen. Knower of the unknown.”_** She gets the uncomfortable sense that, somehow, this faceless, unknowable monstrosity is _smiling_ at her. Somewhere. **_“It is not often that one such as I am surprised. Impressive,”_** he murmurs slowly. **_“Most impressive.”_**

“Would you get out of the way?” Serana glares at him. “I have no business with you. I don’t want whatever it is you think you’re selling to me—”

 ** _“Ohh,”_** Hermaeus Mora murmurs, **_“but you do. You just do not know it yet. I have been watching you. Not you, specifically,_** ** _”_** he clarifies. **_“You—and the one they call Dragonborn.”_** His voice morphs into something like a growl, and Serana shudders despite herself.

**_“Your continuing aid—and hers—to Septimus renders him increasingly obsolete. He has served me well, but his time is nearing its end. Once that infernal lockbox is opened, he will have exhausted his usefulness to me. When that time comes…”_ **

He pauses, almost seeming to consider his words. **_“You see,”_** he tells her, almost companionably, **_“it is the Dragonborn who shall take his place as my emissary. I did not expect you. But,”_** he says, before she can speak, **_“I suppose she is not here for the same reason you have come in her place.”_**

Serana stares at him.

For a moment, she’d thought—she’d thought there might have been a chance that Hermaeus was involved. That, somehow, Eres’ condition could have been similar because it was the _same_ Daedric Prince interfering with her that had interfered with Septimus. She had not wanted to think it possible, of course, but now, hearing from him that he had not planned this himself—that in fact, things had gone quite differently from what he had wished…

What could that _mean_?

“You’re telling me you have nothing to do with what happened to her?”

 ** _“Perhaps.”_** His form undulates as he speaks, morphing and shifting so quickly that she cannot keep her eyes in just one place, searching for something to look at, for something that speaks to her. **_“I intended… for the Dragonborn,”_** he admits. **_“But it is no matter. She cannot evade me forever. I will have her as my champion, one way or another.”_**

“She would _never_ be your champion. You don’t know as much as you think you do if you think she’d ever serve you willingly.”

Hermaeus Mora laughs yet again. **_“Willingly or unwillingly - it matters not to me how she serves me. But she will serve me, all the same. She may resist. She may refuse. Many have tried. I have broken them all.”_** A pause. Then, **_“She will serve me. And so shall you,”_** he says, all too smugly. **_“If you do not wish her to suffer the same fate as our dear Septimus.”_**

Serana stills. “It _is_ related, then. What _fate_ are you talking about?”

 ** _“Surely you know.”_** She gets the sense he is smiling at her, again, but this time it is not with mirth, but cold satisfaction. **_“Did you believe a mortal could truly effect such change in the realms of Oblivion without consequences?”_** A short chuckle. **_“Eventually, there is a price for such meddling. The toll must be paid. And she will pay it. One way or another. Just as Septimus has paid his—for the knowing of things mortals cannot hope to comprehend. The minds of mortals are so very fragile. They buckle and fold beneath the weight of the truth of the world around them.”_**

**_“It begins with a fracturing.”_ **

The writhing mass before her shifts. A piece of it detaches from the whole, shaping itself into the likeness of a mortal brain. Upon that surface, a glowing, greenish fissure appears, small and thin and unassuming.

**_“ A single crack in the surface. A mortal might survive such a thing with his mind intact, so long as he does not place too much pressure upon it. But the weight grows, and so the crack grows…”_ **

The glowing green of that fissure spreads, spidering along the surface of the dark mind modeled before her, spinning slowly in place to show just how the fissure spreads, how the branches spread over the entirety of its surface until it is a web of glowing green illness suffusing the surface of it.

 ** _“More, and more, it splinters.”_** The fissures begin to widen, first at the points where the branches of the rivers of green energy meet, then further along entire lines across the surface until there are gaping gashes opening upon its dark surface.

**_“Eventually…”_ **

The dark model of the mind seems almost to struggle against the pressure compressing it from all sides, even as the cracks continue to spread along the surface and then—

Serana flinches despite herself as it _collapses_ beneath the pressure, as it is utterly eviscerated right before her eyes—as there is nothing left but the fragments of what had once been a whole, healthy mind.

 ** _“But all is not lost,”_** Hermaeus Mora murmurs to her, almost gently. **_“Not yet. She may yet be saved. I should know - I know all. If you wish to save her… You need only continue to serve me, as you are doing now. Bring the Blood Septimus requires. That infernal lockbox must be opened. And when it is…”_**

She feels him smile, again, even as the hall begins to brighten, even as his writhing form begins to fade right before her eyes.

**_“I shall tell you then.”_ **

He is gone before she can ask more of him, before she can _demand_ more of him.

She is left in the wake of him, feeling cold and rubbed raw and horrifically _alone_ , in this—because she cannot rely on anyone to tell her what she must do, now.

 _Eres_ would never work with Hermaeus Mora. That, Serana knows without needing to ask. She had had enough of Daedric meddling with Molag Bal, and she would not have worked for Hermaeus Mora even if her life depended on it.

But…

Serana is not Eres. And Eres’ life _does_ depend on it. Even if Hermaeus isn’t telling her the _whole_ truth—what he’d said of her condition made too much sense. Eres’ mind fracturing under the pressure of the things she’d experienced, of the Dragon Breaks—they had _known_ that was a possibility. All they needed to know now was how to _fix it_.

And if … if she has to serve him to find out what that is, if she has to help Septimus to find a way to save Eres, then… Of course she will do it. It’s not even a question. It’s not even something she has to think about.

And perhaps Hermaeus Mora had known that, as he supposedly knew everything. He would have known that she would continue to help Septimus, if it meant that she would find a way to save Eres. Which… That also meant that he could easily be deceiving her, telling her what he knew would incite her to following his lead, to doing as he wished her to…

But what choice does she have, here? If he is lying, then he is lying. But if there’s even a fraction of truth in what he’d said, then—then this just might be how she helps her. How she saves her.

How she can return home, and hold her in her arms again, and look her in the eyes, and—and tell her she loves her, now, because she had been so _stupid,_ before. She’d wasted so much time dancing around it, and after all the time she’d spent while Eres was in Coldharbour, fretting over this _exact_ thing! That she’d never told her, and now here she is _again_ , repeating the same damn mistakes. Will she ever _learn_?

She will, this time. She’ll make sure of it. She’ll do this. She’ll help Septimus. She’ll open that stupid Dwemer box. And when Hermaeus comes to her again, he _will_ tell her how to help Eres—it’s all she’s got, right now. It’s all she can hope for, all she can count on. She has to do it. She has no choice.

If she ever wants to tell Eres she loves her, if she ever wants to kiss her again, to hold her again, to _be_ with her again—she has no choice.

She will do it, because she must. And she won’t regret it for a moment.


	16. Chosen

Serana is not lacking in empathy.

When she kills, she does not revel in it. When she feeds, she does not take pleasure from it. Killing—and feeding—are simply unfortunate necessities. She cannot help but to do both, at times, but that does not mean she takes pride in it.

Her father would have. Harkon enjoyed the _hunt_ of it, the game of it. Dinner to him was a thing of sport, of entertainment. _Run_ , he would say, to the poor souls he captured. _Run, and you might yet live._

They never did, of course. No matter how much of a headstart he gave them. Time to run, to hide, a weapon, armor—none of it mattered. There is nowhere to run on a remote island. Sooner or later, Harkon would find them, and take pleasure in their despair - in their struggle. Harkon had always held himself close to the Prince he worshipped—he found ways to display his power, to revel in it.

Serana had not, and never will.

Not even when it is Eres’ life on the line does she enjoy it. A hunt is a hunt, not a game or a sport - it is simply something she must do.

The bandits come first, holed up in a little fort just south of Dawnstar. She clears them out as she would any bandit encampment, taking the extra time only to collect the blood of three of the fallen - Orsimer and Bosmer, even a Dunmer, just as she planned - and to feed upon one unlucky soul she corners in the dark corners of the fort interior. She will need the energy. That is all.

Northwatch comes next. It takes nearly a full day to reach it, even with her speed. The Thalmor’s immediate suspicion of her does not save them. She must employ a bit more care there, yes—because among the Thalmor were mages just as powerful as herself, and she cannot allow herself to be caught off guard. She is powerful, perhaps. Not invincible.

She takes her time. She approaches that Keep as she would had Eres been with her - methodically, working from the outside in. She picks off the furthest of the patrols, gathers the blood she will need, and there is a moment she considers leaving the rest of them be.

She needs nothing more from them, and it would certainly save her time—but then she remembers the price the Thalmor very likely still have on Eres’ head, and so instead she combs Northwatch from top to bottom until she is sure that she has killed everyone within it.

Except for the prisoner.

Serana does not know who he is. She does not ask. She does not care who he is, or why he is there. As far as she is concerned, any enemy of the Thalmor is a friend of hers—but that is not why she saves him.

She saves him because Eres would have asked her to, if she had been here. Eres would have freed him. Eres would have helped him.

He asks her name. Thanks her profusely.

She does not tell him.

She leaves him there to his own. What he does from now is not her concern. She had done what Eres would have wanted her to do - that is all she cares for. Eres would expect better of her. Eres has always seen more good in Serana than she had ever thought she had. Serana will not disappoint her in that. Not if she can help it.

Two more days, and she is at Alftand, walking the same halls that she had once walked with Eres, so long ago now that it felt almost as though decades had passed. Has it really only been just over a year since then? Has she really only known Eres just over a _year_?

 _“Fires tend to go a long way.”_ It had been Eres’ dry humor that had caught her attention first, so in tune with her own. Back then, Serana had never met someone she had simply _clicked_ with so quickly. It had seemed as though they had known each other a lifetime already, by then.

_“Noted. I’ll just throw a few fireballs your way until you stop shivering.”_

Things had been so easy then, in their own way. It had not seemed like it at the time. Not chasing down the Scrolls for her father’s prophecy, but—her and Eres. It had been easy, then. Serana hadn’t realized it, yet.

But passing through these halls only serves to remind her how very often her gaze had found Eres back then, her eyes drawn to _her_ more than the ancient ruins they explored, more than the alien world resting just beneath the surface. The way the bluish glow of Blackreach’s flora had made Serana’s own pale skin look somehow paler, even sickly - and how, in comparison, it had bathed Eres’ bronzed skin in an ethereal glow.

How long had Serana loved her, before she’d known? Had it been just attraction, then?

It had to have been, Serana thinks, because she had flirted with Eres quite often, then, and not once had it ever crossed her mind as anything _serious_.

Banter came naturally to Serana - even as close as she’d been to her mother, before, even then they had spent much of their time together in argument. Not because they resented each other, or anything of the sort, but rather - that had been _their_ game.

Just as Harkon had had his hunts, she and her mother had their verbal sparring - in just about everything one could imagine, from heated debates about the ethics of necromancy to silly, childish arguments about whose turn it was to clean the alembic.

The back-and-forth she had fallen into so easily with Eres had reminded Serana of that, in a way—though of course debating with her mother had excited her in its own ways, helping to relieve the boredom and stagnation of spending a veritable eternity within the same walls—the banter with Eres had been similar, and yet altogether different. It had still excited her, in the way of having someone who could keep up with her, someone who did not take offense at every little thing, someone who could give as much as she takes.

It had been the thrill of having someone her own age, at first. Debating with her mother was fun, until it wasn’t. With Eres, Serana could push those limits imposed on her, test the boundaries that had been instilled in her from birth - and more. How quickly she had found she enjoyed needling her, if only to watch Eres’ usually collected expression shift into fluster or good-natured annoyance.

At that time, Serana had needled her because she _could_. She had never thought more deeply as to _why_ she enjoyed it - she just did. She’d always enjoyed annoying her mother, to an extent, why would she have thought there was anything untoward about her reaction to Eres?

It had been especially strange, then, too, that the flirting - joking or no - had come so easily to her. Serana had certainly never entertained suitors back home. Had never even had a passing interest in those around her.

Her understanding of _flirtation_ was limited to either what she read in books, or unfortunately stumbled upon in darkened hallways. Before Eres, Serana could not have said she had much interest in love at all, even as a concept.

At some point, that had shifted. At some point, the jokes had not quite been jokes anymore. At some point, the flirtation had become a game of its own - how easily could she fluster her? How much could she get away with? Would Eres notice it? Would she catch on? There was a thrill in that danger, in that straddling of the fence between _friend_ and _more_.

And Serana, fool that she was—she’d still thought then that she had only flirted with Eres because she knew Eres did not take her seriously. She could do such a thing, because it meant nothing, after all - how had she managed to fool herself into believing that?

How long had she loved Eres, and simply turned a blind eye to it? How long had she ignored it, denied it, pretended it didn’t exist? Was it as far back as Alftand, here? Blackreach, perhaps, after they had gotten the Scroll and Serana had thought - now. _Now_ is the time to be a bit daring. Had that been it? Had that been when it had shifted?

If Serana is honest with herself, she cannot quite remember. She knows the first time she had thought of kissing her - how could she not? But beyond that, as far as _when_ it had all began… Serana is not sure she could have pinpointed a singular moment in time. It had seemed that she had blinked, and her eyes had opened to all of the things she had not seen before, and suddenly she was lost.

Perhaps there had always been a part of her that had been attracted to her. Eres certainly was not an unattractive woman. The golden brown of her skin, the light color of her eyes, the sharp brow and refined cheekbones that lent to her elven heritage, the cupid’s bow of her lips and the stubborn chin—the way her face softened when she smiled, the cut of her gaze when she was provoked…

Had it been the same for Eres? Did Eres know _when_ she’d fallen for Serana?

Serana decides, then, absently kneeling beside a dead Falmer to extract its blood, that she will ask when she returns. She’s curious as to which of them fell first. She is almost sure it had been herself, but—perhaps Eres would prove her wrong. Perhaps Eres had returned her feelings long before Serana had thought it even a remote possibility.

The extractor in her hands hisses as the final tube seals itself shut. When she turns it in her hands, counting each of the chambers she has filled just to be sure—there are five in all, filled to the brim with dark, fresh blood. Or, at least, as fresh as she could manage.

“That’s all of them.”

Serana stands, sighing. She is not looking forward to seeing Hermaeus Mora again. She is not even looking forward to seeing _Septimus_ again.

But the sooner she gets this done, the sooner she can find the answers she seeks - and the sooner she can return to Eres. The sooner, she hopes, Eres will wake.

* * *

Septimus is actually sleeping when she arrives. She does not know why the sight of him doing such a _human_ thing unsettles her, but it does all the same. It takes her a moment to recover from the surprise of seeing him do something so—so _normal_.

When she calls his name, however, he leaps from his bed with far too much agility for a man of his advanced age. His hands are in front of him, casting the strangest imitation of what she _supposes_ is meant to be a ward that she has ever seen - but the edges of it are warped and uneven, with gaping holes in its surface that defeat the purpose of casting a ward at all.

“It’s me, Septimus.”

“You? No,” he says, frowning. “ _I_ am Septimus.”

The sound of her hand connecting with her forehead almost seems to echo in the cavernous room.

“Not—I meant it’s _me._ _”_ Why her? Eres had _so_ much more patience for this kind of thing than Serana does, and even Eres had tired of Septimus quickly. “I have the blood you need here.”

His lips spread into a slow smile. The ward - or the attempt at one, anyhow - drops at once. “I can almost… hear them,” he murmurs. “I feel their life energy. Come. I will make the mixture.”

Serana at least makes the effort of pretending to pay attention, but none of this holds any interest for her. What is in the box itself, _perhaps_ —if what is there is truly as valuable as Septimus seems to think it is.

He’d called it the Heart, had he not? There is only one Heart that Serana can think of that he would be looking for in his hopes to have the knowledge of _divinity_ , as he’d said. The Heart of Lorkhan - she remembers vague mentions of such an artifact long before she had been entombed.

For a time, even her father had toyed with the idea of trying to retrieve it himself. The power Molag Bal had offered him had been finite, after all - what the Heart could give him would not be. It was said that a man who found the Heart could become a god, and so of course her father would leap at such an opportunity to seize power.

Serana does not remember why her father had suddenly turned his mind away from it. Perhaps her mother had convinced him of the likelihood of its existence, that attempting to find such a thing would be nothing more than an exercise in frustration.

It had seemed as though one day, Harkon had been insistent that it was _he_ who would find it at last - and then the next, it was as though he had never heard of it. Perhaps that had been when he had caught wind of Vyrthur’s false prophecy, she supposes. It would make sense if his preoccupation with the Heart had only ended with the beginning of an obsession with something else.

Serana knows very little of it, not least because she had not often bothered to listen to her father’s ramblings at all. That, and the years before her turning were difficult to recall at all, even when she reaches for them. She’s _certain_ that she’d heard him speak of it, when she was younger and still human, but - she cannot recall what it is he may have said about it. After the ritual, well—she had gone from at least pretending to listen to him to actively avoiding him at any opportunity.

By the time she’d been entombed, it may have been years since she’d sat down and had an actual conversation with him aside from a passing hello - which, when one is living confined in a singular castle, is almost impressive.

After she and Eres had parted - after Harkon’s death, and Serana’s retrieval of her mother from the Soul Cairn - Serana had spent a lot of time reading up on the Empire. Then, when Eres had been in Coldharbour, Serana had read all that she could of the things she heard from Isran - about Pelinal Whitestrake and Morihaus the Man-Bull, about St. Alessia herself and the slave uprising…

And the Stone. The very same Stone that Eres had used to get _out_ of Coldharbour - hadn’t that Inquisitor said that it had been a fake, an imitation of the real thing? And Serana _had_ read several accounts of the Heart being called the Stone—had Septimus actually managed to find the one thing Molag Bal had been looking for the entire time? Hadn’t he wanted to use its power to escape Greymarch?

If it seems improbable, her mother would say, it is probably because it is. 

When Septimus does finally finish his mixture, pouring it over the runed lexicon to activate the—something about sealing mechanisms, she thinks, but she hadn’t been listening—and the Dwemer contraption hisses open, Serana does not know what to expect.

When she hears his disappointment, she is not altogether surprised.

“What is this?” Septimus moans, head in his hands. She approaches him, eying the thick tome upon the pedestal. “It’s—it’s just a book?!”

“I don’t know what you were expecting,” she mutters, shaking her head. _This is what you get for trusting a Daedra,_ she wants to say, but then - she is hardly any better now, is she? But at least she’d not truly _trusted_ him, so to speak.

“Oh…” Septimus’ fingers caress the cover of the book almost reverently as his eyes widen. “ _Ohhh_ , I can see! I _see_ ,” he breathes, breath coming in short, excited bursts. She looks between him and the book, but she doesn’t see anything at all.

“The world beyond… _burns_ in my mind…” Septimus’ eyes raise to the ceiling, glazing with distance. She watches, pityingly, as he falls slowly to his knees just there, where he stands. “It’s… _marvelous_ …”

When Septimus dies, consumed from within - it is with a smile upon his face.

 _Poor bastard,_ Serana thinks, and she genuinely does feel a bit sorry for him. Sure, she hadn’t _liked_ him - but he hadn’t deserved to die. She knew, too, that he had not died naturally - he could not have. Not when he had not even read the book itself, magical artifact or no.

Serana eyes that book, skeptical. _This_ was what Hermaeus Mora had wanted unlocked? What was so special about that book that it had been sealed away for centuries in such a contraption? And why would Hermaeus Mora be so invested in its unsealing?

Whatever is in that book, Serana figures, is most likely _not_ something she wants to fuck with.

**_“Come, my champion.”_ **

There he is. The very thing she’d been waiting for.

 ** _“Or, shall I say - my champion’s champion?”_** She turns to see that writhing mass of black energy just behind her, curling and shifting and undulating in the doorway. In the Dwemer box, his chuckles seem to bounce around inside her very skull.

“She’s not your Champion. And she won’t ever be.”

 ** _“Ah,”_** Hermaeus says, almost pitying himself. **_“But who do you think brought Septimus here? Who placed him in your path - and hers? Who do you believe protected her on her journey to open the box and loose my knowledge upon this world? And you as well, by association. Your free will is an illusion - as it is with all mortals. Yes - even you, Daughter of Coldharbour. Whether you acknowledge me or not is your business. But I will be in your mind. Now…”_**

He shifts, curling further into the room as if to reach for the book upon the pedestal - he does not, but she backs away all the same, lip curling with disgust at his mere proximity.

 ** _“I believe I offered you a deal, my dear champion’s champion.”_** She’s sure of it now - he’s just saying it to get on her nerves. **_“Do you know what this book is?”_**

“No.” Serana says shortly. “And I don’t care. What I want to know is—”

 ** _“Patience,”_** he admonishes, tutting. **_“It is my Oghma Infinium. It contains the knowledge of the ages as revealed to Xarxes, my loyal servant. For hundreds of years, it has been shut away from the world. Septimus was a useful tool for unleashing it. Now, it is in your hands. Let us work wonders together—”_**

“I told you I’m not working with you. You said that you’d have something to tell me about Eres. I helped you. I did what you asked.” Serana scowls at - one of the blobs of dark mass. She’s not sure if it’s his actual face, but it’s something for her to be mad at, and that’s good enough for her. “Now tell me what I need to know. Tell me how to help her. A deal’s a deal.”

 ** _“A deal…”_** He murmurs, twisting around on himself. He does not touch the book or the pedestal it sits upon, but rather warps around it, expanding to fill the far end of the room. Something about it makes it feel as though he is teasing her, as if he is goading her somehow, in some way she can’t quite see.

 ** _“Yes,”_** he says. **_“You saw what became of Septimus, did you not?”_** He asks, needlessly, as if Septimus had not died right in front of her. **_“Surely you would not want such a thing for the Dragonborn. There is a way to stop it. To … halt its progress. Perhaps,”_** he says, **_“even to repair the cracks within her mind.”_**

 ** _“I told you what it is that has ailed her so. Mortals, meddling with matters far beyond their understanding, far beyond their comprehension… There is a way one might come back from such a thing - if,”_** he says intently, “ ** _and only if - they come to comprehend it. Such a feat is impossible with their mortal minds, you see - but all is not lost. For I am the Knower of the Unknown—_** ** _”_**

Now she gets it. And she _hates_ herself for even thinking there might have been a chance he’d been able to help her. Of course he’d relate it back to serving him, one way or another. She should have known that would be the case.

“Eres isn’t going to serve you.” Serana scowls at him. “Get over it.”

 ** _“Then I fear all is lost, after all. You must make well of your time remaining.”_** Hermaeus Mora chuckles. **_“You do not have much of it left.”_**

“There has to be something else.” She says it to herself almost more than him - at this point, she’s not expecting him to offer her anything useful. But there has to be _something_ , something she can do to help her. There _must_ be—

 ** _“Soon,”_** Hermaeus pushes ever further. **_“How shall you spend your eternity knowing you let her die?_** ** _”_**

“I’m not _letting_ her do anything! You—” Serana’s mouth snaps shut.

Eres cannot serve Hermaeus Mora. She wouldn’t, not after what had happened with Molag Bal. Serana’s stomach roils, even as she considers it.

 _Eres_ cannot serve him. But maybe _she_ can.

“You’re saying you can fix her?” She asks him. “You can keep her mind from fracturing - _entirely_?”

 ** _“I can save her, yes.”_** He says, sounding all too pleased with the turn in her. **_“If she comes to me. If she becomes my champion, as I wish her to be - then there is nothing she will have to fear, anymore. There is nothing she will not know. The knowledge of the world will be open to her. I reward my champions well.”_**

Serana, wordlessly, glances meaningfully at Septimus’ crumpled body. She does not have to give voice to her doubts on _that_ front.

 ** _“Well.”_** Hermaeus amends, **_“Most of them.”_**

Right. Because that’s assuring.

Not that Eres would agree to it, regardless. But—

Hermaeus begins to laugh, suddenly, low and guttural in the back of a throat that does not exist.

 ** _“_** ** _Foolish,”_** he says, chuckling at her. **_“How utterly foolish of you. I know all,”_** he says, when she looks at him, **_“and I know of the offer you meant to make me. An equal exchange, you believed - you, for her. You as my champion in her place. Is that it?”_**

Her expression tightens. “Do you accept it or not? I’d do what you wanted, as long as—”

 ** _“As I said,”_** Hermaeus replies, **_“how very foolish of you. Your soul is already pledged to another. Or have you forgotten where you have come from, Daughter of Coldharbour? Let no one say I do not respect the claims of my brethren.”_**

She feels _sick_.

**_“His domain is not mine to meddle in.”_ **

“How can I _wake_ her then?”

 ** _“She will wake,”_** he confirms. **_“She is not gone yet—but she will be. If you do not bring her to me. Bring her to me, Serana,_**” he utters her name like he knows her, like he has the right to, and she shudders at the sound of it in his voice. **_“Bring her to me, when the time comes - that is the deal I will offer you. Bring her to me, and I may yet tell you how to… halt its progress long enough to save her.”_**

“What do you mean, _bring her to you?_ Bring her _where_? And for _what_?” Not that she _would_ , but — if Hermaeus has some future plan for Eres, she wants to know what and _when_.

 ** _“You will know, when the time comes.”_** Hermaeus murmurs. **_“I fear by then you will have no choice in the matter, regardless. But no matter - I am nothing if not generous to those who serve me. There is but one way the pressure may be eased, until such time when it can be relieved entirely.”_**

 ** _“Lie,”_** he instructs her.

**_“Lie, and do not allow her to seek the truth. It is the truth of this world itself that she is not equipped to understand. It is not the dreams which ail her - but reality, itself. The more the Dragonborn knows of this world, the more danger she places herself in. The more she remembers_ ** **_… The more likely she will be consumed by her own mortality.”_ **

**_“So, lie - Serana of the Volkihar, Daughter of Coldharbour. Hide the truth from her. Shield her from that which she cannot hope to bear alone. Sometimes,_** ” Hermaeus says sagely, **_“it is the truth which hurts us most.”_**

“What does that _mean—_ ”

But already, he is fading, just as he had the first time, and then she is alone.

Alone, with nothing but the book Hermaeus Mora has left her, and Septimus Signus’ crumpled, cooling body at her feet.

****

* * *

When Serana returns to Fellburg at last, nearly two weeks following her initial departure - it is with no more answers than when she had left.

Auria, and Mirabelle, and Isran, and even her mother all gather expectantly around her, and it is Serana who must crush all hopes they might have had.

“Tell me,” Auria implores. “What did you find of Septimus?”

Serana looks past her, over Auria’s shoulder - at the bed in which Eres remains, as unconscious as she had been the day Serana had left.

She has been dressed recently, Serana notices. Her clothes look neat and unrumpled, despite her immobility. Even her hair appears as though it has been freshly washed and combed, though it is dry to the touch when Serana reaches down to thread her fingers through it. Eres does not look any better than she had when Serana had left.

But then, she supposes, she also does not look any worse - and perhaps that is the most she can ask for.

“Serana?” Mirabelle prompts. “Did you find Septimus?”

Serana sighs. She draws her hand away from Eres - feeling the warmth of her skin has settled her, if only a little.

“Yes,” she answers them. “I found him.”

“And?” Mirabelle presses. “What of him? I can assume, by your countenance, that what news you may have does not bode well.”

“Well, he’s dead, for one.” Serana starts, holding nothing back. She sees no reason to. Auria sinks into a nearby chair, and Serana pities her. She pities herself, too, really. “He wasn’t dead when I found him, but…” she shakes her head. “He was serving Hermaeus Mora, trying to open some… Dwemer contraption or another, up there. I had to help him get it open to even attempt to get anything out of him, but…”

“This contraption killed him?” Mirabelle asks.

“No. At least, I don’t think so.” Serana frowns. If she had to wager a guess, she would imagine that it had been the thing that Hermaeus had warned her of himself that had killed Septimus - his mind had simply buckled under the weight of that which he could not comprehend. How that related to the Dwemer box, and the _Oghma Infinium_ found within it, Serana does not know.

“There was a book inside it. Hermaeus Mora wanted it unsealed, for whatever reason. Nothing good, I imagine. Septimus died before he ever got to read it.”

Valerica’s frown matches Serana’s own. “And this book? Did you bring it with you?”

“Of course I brought it, Mother.” Serana tosses her bag upon the desk - where it lands with a deep _thunk_. The tome within it is as heavy as an entire stack of thick tomes on its own, feeling as though there is so much more within it than can be seen with the naked eye. “It’s in there. He called it _Oghma Infinium_.”

Valerica, promptly, pulls open the bag. Instead of touching the book directly, however, she pulls at the fabric until it slides out upon the desk on its own. Her frown deepens as she sees it for herself.

“I see.” She murmurs. She still does not reach to touch it. “I see now why He may have had such a vested interest in its unsealing.”

“Care enlightening the rest of the class?” Serana asks, well out of patience for beating around the bush.

“The _Oghma Infinium_ ,” Mirabelle provides, apparently much more willing to explain than Valerica herself, “is a book penned by Xarxes, the Ageless One, the God of Secrets and Hidden Knowledge. It is said he began his life as a priest, perhaps a scribe to Auri-El himself.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Serana sees Auria’s face twist with discomfort. But the woman says nothing.

“In it,” Mirabelle continues, “it is said that all of the knowledge of the World is within it. Or,” Mirabelle amends, “at least the knowledge which _He_ gifted unto him.”

“ _All_ of the knowledge of the world?” Serana asks, eying it. Hermaeus had said that he’d bestowed knowledge upon Xarxes, but he had not mentioned what that knowledge had been. If the _Oghma Infinium_ truly had _all_ of the world’s knowledge, of all things that could be known or _would_ be known - was it possible that it could also know how to save Eres?

“No.” Valerica steps to one side, blocking Serana’s view of the book upon the table. The woman crosses her arms over her chest, eyes flashing, _daring_ her to challenge her. “You will not read it. _None_ of us will,” Valerica adds, sweeping her gaze across the room in one quick, cool glance.

“Mother, if that tome truly does know _everything_ —”

“If it does,” Valerica cuts in coldly, “then that is all the more reason to leave it alone. Hermaeus Mora would not part with one of his artifacts so easily if he did not have plans for it. I was led to believe I had raised you better than this, Serana. You of all people should know better than to take a Daedra at his word.”

“I _do_ know,” Serana snaps back at her. “But I also know we don’t have anywhere else to turn! Are we just supposed to _leave_ her like this?”

“Of course not.” Valerica scoffs. “Auria and I have been working on alternative methods of rousing her. It simply will take some time to ensure she will not come to harm in the process.”

Serana, frowning, looks to Auria. Auria, who looks—Serana is not even sure of the right term for the look she sees upon Auria’s face, then. Haunted? Thrown? “Is that true, Auria? Is there another way?”

Auria blinks. She turns to look at her, sluggishly, as though her thoughts are far, far away from the present conversation. “I’m sorry?”

“You and my mother - you really have a way to wake her?”

Auria’s lips purse together. “Well…” She glances at Eres upon the bed. “That remains to be seen. We have - an _idea_ ,” she says. “But we are still working on its execution.”

“And how long will that take?”

“Ideally?” Auria asks. “Months, perhaps. Years, in the worst case.” When Serana’s mouth drops open, half to shouting that she could not wait _years_ , Auria smiles thinly. “We must first test the procedure on those who are at less risk than Eres herself. It will take time to perfect it, and yet more time to ensure that we perform it safely for _her_ , specifically. We are almost ready to begin our trials, should we manage to find enough volunteers.”

“And—what exactly is this procedure?” Serana asks, wary. Auria makes it sound dangerous. She can’t see any volunteer who would gladly sign up for such a thing.

“Simple,” Valerica responds. “We draw her out.”

Serana stares at her. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Auria, however, sighs. “It is not that simple. Well,” she adds, “it _is_ that simple, in layman’s terms. However,” she stands, brushing a hand over Eres’ brow. “Work with the mind is always challenging. There are any number of things that could go wrong. Even among our people, such a procedure would not normally be attempted. But it is true that, theoretically — yes, it is possible to do such a thing.”

“Explain.”

“How much do you know of mind-healing?”

“Not much.” Serana admits. Her studies had focused on the physical - anatomy and physiology, alchemy - nothing which required too deep an understanding of the mind, itself.

“Well, I assume, if you know of medicine, you know of the cycle of a wound - the initial injury. The clotting of blood, the scabbing, the scar tissue - all of which are different stages of the healing process.” Serana nods. That, she understands.

“When a mind is injured,” Auria explains, “the injury is not always so visible. With trauma, especially, there may be no physical manifestation of such an injury. It is a wound, all the same, and so it, too, must heal. Over time, with appropriate care, it should heal as one would hope any wound to heal. However… There is the chance that, without guidance, the injury will heal incorrectly, or not heal at all. Mind-healing is a manner of guiding the mind to heal as it should, when it has gotten lost along the way.”

“But,” Auria says, “it is a very delicate process. It is possible to do more harm than good. We must be careful, in such endeavors, and that is why wounds beneath the surface - deeper wounds, wounds that are harder to trace, harder to find - are often left alone. For it is not worth the risk to hunt for them, so deep within the recesses of the psyche.”

“But you believe you can heal Eres’ mind, this way?”

“Possibly.” Auria wrings her hands. “But I admit that I fear it. For us to even attempt this kind of healing, Eres must be well and truly _unconscious_ \- not in the manner that she is now, in which she dreams. That she dreams means that her mind is still active - which means it may try to fight us, should we intrude upon it. Instead, we will have to send her deeper yet. Deep enough that her mind’s defenses will no longer allay us, once we delve inside on our own.”

“Sedation, you mean.” Serana looks between the lot of them, and feels suddenly unbalanced. There is no mistaking the looks upon their faces.

They had all discussed this, before. All of them knew of it. They had merely been waiting for _her_ approval.

“Magical sedation,” Mirabelle clarifies. “Yes. This, of course, would be done at the College, where we would have the equipment to ensure that the sedation is handled safely. The foremost experts in Restoration will be at hand.”

Serana cannot answer them now. She doesn’t have enough information. But—the thought of sending Eres _further_ into her mind scares her. What if that meant she just never came out?

“What happens after the sedation? How do you fix it?”

“We believe,” Valerica says primly, “that the reason for her recurrent … _problems_ \- is her memories of Coldharbour, and the mantling itself. There have been reports of mortals who have undergone similar events as Eres, and all of them also lost themselves to it, eventually. It is also telling that Coldharbour is the only thing mentioned within the journal she kept, and it appears to be the one thing she dreams of most within these episodes.”

“Your mother would provide assistance,” Auria tells Serana, “but I would be doing most of the work myself. I will have to send myself into her mind, and… _shift_ things, so that she does not remember. You could think of it as guided repression of memory - I would simply be utilizing the mind’s own defenses to accomplish a goal. That is, to reduce the stress. It is too delicate a process to attempt upon a waking mind.”

Serana’s throat tightens Her breath stills in her chest. “And what happens after that?” She asks, hollow. “Does she forget everything? Does she forget—how _much_ is she going to forget?”

Would she forget _me?_ She almost asks, but does not.

Auria’s expression tightens. “Anything related to Coldharbour will need to be locked away,” she admits. “That also means—”

“Anything related to Molag Bal.” Serana breathes. “That’s—she—”

“She _would_ remember you,” Auria assures her. “Just—not _everything_ about you…”

“No.” The word falls from her lips automatically. “No. No, you’re not doing that. _Absolutely_ not.”

“Daughter—”

“Don’t _daughter_ me!” Serana rips herself from her mother’s grip, glaring at the lot of them. “How dare you? How dare _any_ of you suggest that we just—that we just _rip away_ who she _is_.”

“Serana—” Auria starts.

“No, you don’t get to do this. I would have—I was ready to hand myself over to Hermaeus Mora if it meant she would wake up! I would be fine with sacrificing _me_ ,” she can hardly _breathe_ for how furious she is with them. “I’m _not_ going to sacrifice her. No matter what you say. We’ll find another way if it kills me. I’m not losing her. I’m not losing _my_ Eres—the Eres I know, just to buy you a little more time!”

“If we do not do this, then—”

“Then she’ll die anyways.” She tells them, voice cold. “She’ll just die twice. And you’ll be the ones killing her the first time. You will _not_ touch her.”

“Alright.” Isran throws his hands up, moving to the center of the room. “Let’s all—breathe, for a moment.” He looks at Serana, holds her gaze no matter how murderously she glares back at him. “It was an _option_ , Serana. A last resort. We wouldn’t have done it unless _everyone_ agreed to it. And I sure as hell wasn’t that keen on it myself,” he mutters.

Then he turns to Auria and Valerica, “There’s a limit to how far we can go for this. Eres woke up on her own last time. Let’s slow the hell down before we do something we can’t take back.”

“Do you think _I_ want to do this?” Auria snaps back, equally as livid. “That is _my child_ —” and her voice breaks, her expression crumpling so painfully that it hurts to look at her. “That is _my child_ , and I cannot help her. What _else_ could I do?”

“We can _wait_ ,” Isran insists. “It took nearly three weeks last time for her to wake up, and that was when she’d mantled. She might be worse off this time - we don’t know. Frankly,” he says bluntly, “I don’t think she is. She’s not had a single seizure since she got here, and she had plenty of those before. We just need to give it _time_. Now, if in a week or two she’s still not showing any signs of improvement—then we can revisit this. As a last resort. As we _agreed on_.”

“That was before Septimus—”

“Yes,” Isran growls. “That was before Septimus died. I have ears, too. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s still too early to try to drive a nail home with a damn _battering ram._ There’s other options. We exhaust those _first_ , before we do anything drastic. Desperation makes you stupid.” He says to them, his eyes narrowed, hardened steel beneath the crease of his brow. “ _Don_ _’t_ be stupid.”

“I suspect you must have some idea of your own to present then, Isran?” Mirabelle asks, raising a singular brow.

“As a matter of fact,” he grouses, “I do. You have that Arcaneum. Take that damn book there and see if there’s some way to look through it without - I don’t know, inviting all hell to break loose. Maybe there _is_ an answer in there somewhere that we can find. Safely.”

“Hmm…” Mirabelle eyes him thoughtfully. “I suppose we may be able to create such a thing, if one does not exist. Urag does have plenty of experience working with dangerous magical tomes in the past.”

“See,” Isran throws his hand up, exasperated. “That’s where we start. Not— _removing_ her brain.”

“It’s not her _brain,_ it’s—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, and he stomps back to his seat. “Memories, brain—it’s all the same thing. You’d be taking away what makes Eres, Eres. You ought to thank your lucky stars Serana didn’t toss you through a wall.”

“I considered it,” Serana drawls, eying her own mother. She wouldn’t have done it to Auria, perhaps - she is, after all, trying to keep in good standing with her - but Valerica? She had certainly thought about it. Valerica, in turn, rolls her eyes.

“This,” Valerica tuts, “ _this_ is why our kind does not fall in love with mortals. _Far_ too much trouble for what they’re worth.”

“Speak for yourself,” Serana mutters. Her mother just wouldn't understand it. Valerica had probably _never_ loved Harkon. Serana certainly hadn't seen any evidence of it growing up. How could her mother possibly know what it was like?

Auria sinks again to the bed, sitting at Eres’ side. “What is our plan, then? Wait and see?”

“We wait,” Isran confirms. “At least a while longer. In the meantime, Mirabelle can take that tome up to Urag, see what he might be able to get out of it.”

“I can,” Mirabelle confirms. “At least for the moment, Eres is stable.” She sets a hand upon Auria’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. “We need not worry for her condition just yet. We have time.”

“Wonderful,” Valerica drawls. “I shall prepare, all the same.”

One by one, they depart. Valerica to her laboratory, Mirabelle to the College, Isran to - wherever it was he went when he was not inside the Keep itself. At one point, that might have been the barracks, but Serana had not even bothered to check if it had been rebuilt yet.

In the end, it is only she and Auria who remain at Eres’ side.

“…Would you really have done it?” Serana asks her, voice soft in the quiet of the room. If she is just quiet enough, she can hear the steady, comforting beat of Eres’ heart.

Auria looks up at her.

“Would you really have taken her memories away? Taken _her_ away?”

“It is not a decision I would have made lightly.” Auria tells her quietly. “But, were it between her death, and her living with just a piece of her missing, then - yes,” she admits, in a broken whisper. “Yes, I would have done it. I am her mother. It is my duty to protect her. To do what I can for her. Just as you do what _you_ can,” she says. “As one who loves her, as well.”

“I don’t know if any of us can do much of anything, at this point.” Serana admits. She hates to say it, hates to even think it, but—it is the truth. It may be that none of them would be able to help at all. This may be just another of those battles that Eres must fight on her own.

“Have you ever heard the story of the Godchosen?” Auria asks her suddenly, straightening where she sits.

Serana sinks into the lounge chair beside the bed. At one time, Eres had kept this chair in the corner near her bookshelf. Serana had become quite familiar with it, in her time at Fellburg. It feels almost like it’s hers.

“I haven’t.”

Serana reaches for Eres’ hand, beneath the covers. Her fingers are warm against hers, the skin soft and silken beneath her touch. They do not so much as twitch as she holds them, but the touch of her brings her comfort all the same.

“It is an old Bosmeri legend,” Auria murmurs. “Of a mortal who was favored by the Gods. Sometimes, when I look at her, I am reminded of it.”

“Tell me.” Serana twines Eres’ fingers with her own. If she pretends, she can almost trick herself into believing that Eres hand squeezes back.

“Long ago, when our People were yet young, and the Song was still new,” Auria begins, “a man found himself upon the Path. Not the Path we all walk in life, no - but the Enduring Path, that which is immeasurable, unknowable, that which swallows light and magic and man alike.”

”The Enduring Path,” Auria explains to her, “is a path comprised of the twining branches of the two oldest trees of our sacred forest. Once upon a time, not so long after the Trees had first learned to walk as the Man do, it is said that two of the Great Ones fell in love.” 

“The Migration may be slow, but one may yet be lost within it - and so, the Great Trees twined their branches together as they roamed, so that they would never be separated. Over centuries upon centuries, their branches twined and fused together - so much so that one can no longer tell when one ends and the other begins. Those entwined branches are known as the Enduring Path.” 

“Not even our wisest sages know the truth of its depths,” Auria tells her. “All light is snuffed within it, and many of our People have lost themselves within it. This man, whom they call the First—found himself upon the Enduring Path. None believed he would emerge again, as no man had done so before. But when morning came, emerge he did indeed, and it was clear that he had been Chosen by the Gods themselves. If the First could find his Way through the Path, the People reasoned, it must mean he could also lead them to greatness, as well.” 

“He became a great leader among his People. The First, the Godchosen, the very Spirit of the Song we held so dear - our People entrusted him with all things, as they believed that he had been anointed. He led the People so well, in fact, that they prospered more than they had ever prospered. The People came to believe they were meant to rule, because all should be so Blessed with a leader such as He—and so they spread his word, his message, his story, and many Peoples came to him, and his flock grew, and grew, until there was but one People, and they were all His.” 

“Our People live long lives—even longer, back then. But soon, His People began to worry for his health. He became despondent. He no longer smiled. It appeared that all Joy had been sapped from him, as though he had grown deaf to the Song itself. The People grew so worried for him, in fact, that upon the Solstice, the most sacred of nights of all, they beseeched the Gods for help. ‘Come,’ they said, ‘for your Chosen needs you.’”

”The Gods came, and so The People begged of them: ‘Please, O Gods, have mercy upon our One—for he is only but one man. You have chosen him for greatness, but is he not great enough for you yet?’”

Auria brushes her fingers across the soft skin of Eres’ cheek, a barely-there touch that is as reverent as it is gentle. “‘You misunderstand,’ said the Gods to the People. ‘We did Bless your One—but it is not Greatness we bestowed upon Him.' The People could not believe this, for it was clear that the Gods had Blessed Him. ‘If not for Greatness,’ the People asked, ‘then why did You lay Your hands upon his brow?’” 

“‘To protect Him,’ the Gods said,” and Auria looks up at her, and her smile is watery-thin. “‘From the Burden you would place upon Him.’”

Serana’s lips press into a tight, bothered frown. 

“That’s a very depressing story.” 

At that, Auria laughs, though there is little joy in it. 

“Yes,” she admits. “For it is meant to be. It is a tale that aims to teach us humility - and also that we cannot place too heavy a burden upon any one person. That,” Auria says, shrugging helplessly, “and that sometimes, the Blessings of the Gods are not what they seem.” 

Serana’s brow pinches together. She’s not sure if she likes this story all that much. 

“Seems like he wouldn’t have needed any Blessing at all if they’d left him alone.” 

At that, Auria smiles. “That is the point, my dear,” she tells her, and pats Serana’s knee. “That the Blessing of a God is a double-edged sword—perhaps you are Blessed, yes. But at what _cost_?” 

Serana looks at Eres, and she already knows the answer to that. 

“Whatever it is, it’s too high.” 

Auria nods. “Among our People,” she murmurs, “the Blessing of a God is as good as any portent. It bodes ill for those who are unfortunate enough to bear it.” 

If that is the case, Serana thinks, then Eres may just be the most unfortunate girl she has ever met. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone wants to add me on discord to chat (or yell at me lol): kailan#0512 feel free to add me :P


	17. High Tide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 8/17/20: Fixed an inconsistency regarding timing.

_“Come on, Eres! Sometime this year, maybe?”_

_Eres blinks. She is standing in water—water that nearly reaches her ankles, water that is muddied and roiling with debris when she looks down the street. It feels like it_ _’s lapping higher, reaching for her calves, but when she looks down, it is where it always was. And of course it would be. The lower ring always flooded when it rained._

 _A hand closes around her wrist, tugging her forward—tugging her upward, higher into the city._ _“Geez, Er. What’s gotten into you?”_

 _The hand belongs to Claude. Claude who pulls her along behind him, climbing the incline that will take them to the east corridor—where Eres lives. Had she gone down to the low end with Claude, today? Why couldn_ _’t she remember it?_

_“What about your parents?” Eres finds herself asking. The lake would flood his home long before hers - why is he here with her at all? Shouldn’t he have rushed home to his own family?_

_“I’ll head back once I make sure you’re okay.” Claude says, glancing back at her. There is concern in his eyes, a furrow in his brow. “You’ve been out of it all day today. Last thing I need is your dad hunting me down cause he thinks I let something happen to you.”_

_“He wouldn’t do that.” Probably, she thinks. By the look Claude gives her, he’s just as skeptical about that one as she is._

_“Yeah, right,” he mutters. “I’m not taking any chances with that one. He already hates me.”_

_“He wouldn’t hate you if you weren’t such a smartass.”_

_“Come on, now,” Claude shoots her a grin. “I’m just saying what you wish you could say. He’s gotta hear it from someone.”_

_At that, Eres rolls her eyes._ _“You know that just makes him more of an asshole towards me later, right?”_

_“Oops,” Claude winces. “Didn’t think about that one.”_

_“You never think.” Because he doesn’t, not really. Claude doesn’t think like she does - he doesn’t consider every little thing he says before he says it. He just—goes with the flow. She’s always wished she could be a little like him, but, perhaps that’s why they’re friends. He does the talking. She does the thinking. That’s always worked out for them alright._

_Eres_ _’ home has never been very far from the ramps between districts, but with the rapidly rising water, it takes them longer than it should to get there. Some of it flows down the incline, where gravity takes hold of it. In other places, it bubbles up from the very aqueducts under the roads, spilling into the streets, settling in the lower places until it rises high enough that it might move downhill again._

_In front of her home, low between two small hills on either side, the water is nearly to the second step of her porch by the time they reach it. It takes effort to slosh through it all, and more still to pull her legs from the water with her drenched pants weighing them down. She manages to reach the third step and turns, huffing._

_“I don’t think it’s ever been this bad before.” She looks past Claude’s head, back towards the little hill she’d have to climb to find the ramp on the other side to the low end. “You should really get back, Claude.”_

_“I’ll go,” he promises, but he takes another step toward her. “But I can’t leave just yet.”_

_A frown pulls at her lips. The water rises higher. She_ _’s on the third step and it’s at her ankles again. She takes a step back, a step upwards, on the porch now, her door just behind her, and still she can feel the water rising, trickling up through the wooden slats beneath her feet. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolls through the valley, long and low and ominous and promising in all the worst kinds of ways._

 _She hates storms like these. She wants to get inside, but Claude_ _…_

_“I’m fine,” she tells him. “I’m home now, you can go.”_

_But Claude just looks at her, standing on the lower step with his hands in his pockets as casually as though it were just another ordinary day. He shakes his head at her, a wan little smile on his lips._

_“Can’t leave yet,” he says, and he says it as though she should know it. He looks at her like he’s waiting for something._

_“Why not?” The water is just covering her toes, now. It’s nearly up to Claude’s knees. He doesn’t even seem to notice._

_Claude takes another step, and another, until he is standing on the porch with her, just in front of her._ _“Open the door, Eres.”_

 _Her brow furrows._ _“You’re acting weird, Claude.”_

_“I just want to make sure you get inside, is all,” he says, and smiles at her. “Can’t I be a gentleman?”_

_“You, a gentleman?” The thought almost makes her laugh. But she does turn to open the door. “There,” she shows him, cracking the door open just the slightest bit. “See, I didn’t forget my key this time. It’s fine, Claude. You can go now.”_

_“Not yet.” Claude shakes his head again. He takes a step forward._

_She takes a step back, half into the front hall now—if she didn_ _’t, he’d have bowled right over her. “Claude, **go**._ _”_

_“You have to go inside, Eres.” He takes another step forward._

_She crosses the threshold. He doesn_ _’t. “Satisfied?”_

 _He smiles._ _“I’m trying to help, Er.”_

_She blinks, and he is not sixteen anymore. He is taller, suddenly, his angles sharper, his expression far more somber than she had ever thought him to be capable of._

_They had been the same height, once. Now he looks down at her, looks at her as though she is an unruly child._

_“I’m trying to help, Er.” He repeats, and his voice is lower, firmer, sterner._

_Eres does not reach for the door handle, and neither does he, and yet it pulls itself closed all the same._

_“It’s time.” He says to her, before the door closes completely._

_“Time for what?”_

_“To wake up.”_

_Wake up?_

_The door closes. Latches shut on its own. She touches the surface, for a moment she remembers that Claude had acted so strangely—and then she blinks, and she cannot remember **exactly** what had been strange about it. What was it he had said to her that seemed so odd? How had she forgotten it so quickly? _

_The water is at her knees, now. The lake_ _’s never flooded this badly. They’ll be lucky if anything’s left once the waters recede again._

_“Shit—” her father. Is he home? He could sleep through anything._

_Eres turns from the door. She has to find him. Has to make sure they both get to the second floor, until the flood passes. Where would he be, right now? The study? The parlor? His office?_

_She checks every room she passes. Some of the doors stick when she tries to open them, such so that she has to throw her shoulder into them just to get through them. The study is empty, and so is the parlor - unless one counted the likes of floating books and old invoices._

_His office, then, Eres figures. She should have guessed he_ _’d be there. He’d been working harder since the debt collectors came last month. Or trying to, anyways - she can at least give him credit for the attempt._

_It takes four shoves to get the door open._

_“Dad?” Eres wades inside, kicking a couple of floating books out of her way, and a—_

_Wait._

_Eres bends over, closes her hands around the hilt of a finely crafted dagger. Her father doesn_ _’t keep weapons in the house. And this one—it had to be expensive. Where did it come from?_

_Why is there blood on it?_

_“Dad…?"_

_Eres steps around the door, moves so that she can see the desk he has pushed into one corner of the room, so that she can see—_

_The dagger slips from her fingertips. She doesn_ _’t even feel its point dig into her thigh as it bobs in the water below. Her voice—her voice dies somewhere in her throat, and she cannot speak, cannot call his name, cannot—cannot call for help that would be too late to begin with._

_They must have found him. They found him, and they got tired of waiting for him to pay, so they—_

_They_ _…_

_Eres blinks._

_The dagger is gone. Her father is bent over his desk, still—but there is no blood in the water around him, anymore._

_Eres—she must have been imagining things. It feels strange, the feeling that fills her when she sees him. Somehow, she is not even surprised. Disappointed, maybe - because she_ _’d seen this coming. Was it even disappointment? Is it pity, instead? She’d seen this coming. She hadn’t thought it would be **now** , but—_

_“Wake up, girl.” For a moment, she thinks it’s him, speaking to her. But his lips don’t move. His eyes don’t see. And that voice… That wasn’t her father’s voice._

_But there is something in it she recognizes. The low grumble of it, the rasping gravel of it_ _… She knows that voice, from somewhere. She’s sure of it._

_A heavy hand lands on her shoulder, spins her to face him—_

_A man, stands there. Taller than her. His skin is just a few shades darker. He has a long beard, and a bald head, and armor that probably weighs more than she does—but he looks at her like he knows her. Like he expects something of her, too._

_“Wrong door.” He tells her._

_“…Wrong door?”_

_“Wrong door.” He confirms._

_The water is at her waist, now. When did it get there?_

_Wait—wait, this isn_ _’t…_

_“Isran?” She knows that name. She knows this man. She knows—she understands, suddenly._

_None of this is real._

_“This isn’t…” Now that she looks at it, **really** looks at it - this room doesn_ _’t even look right. The desk isn’t in the right place. He’d had two bookshelves against the far wall, not three. There’s something off about that painting over the mantle._

_“…I’m dreaming,” she realizes, with some gravity. She looks down at her hands. Drags them through water that feels as real as it could possibly get. “None of this is real.”_

_Suddenly, the flood seems far from her mind. Even the cold body of her father seems not to matter, in the long run._

_Isran just looks at her._ _“Wake up, kid.”_

 _She looks back at him._ _“…I don’t know how.”_

 _It_ _’s—strange. She knows she’s dreaming, now. She knows it can’t be real, that none of it is real—that even **Isran** isn_ _’t real, here. And yet, she doesn’t know how to make it end. How to make it stop. The water still rises._

_“How do I wake up?”_

_“Wrong door.” Isran repeats. He will say nothing else._

_Eres moves carefully past him. He watches her as she leaves. He remains in the room with her father_ _’s body as the water rises higher around them. The office doors shutter close on their own when she crosses that threshold back into the hall and when she pushes against them, she can not get them to open again._

_There are more doors in this hallway. More doors than she can remember her home having, back then._

_“Okay,” she thinks aloud. “Wrong door.” So what did that mean? Is that why she can’t wake up? She needs to find the right door? Is that how she gets out?_

_Eres moves. She tries one door. And another. And another. But even when she wades into them, even when she looks for things that are out of place - there is nothing. Nothing that stands out. No one who comes to her._

_“I don’t **understand**. What **door** am I supposed to find?_ _”_

 _Out of frustration, Eres throws open the door to one of the washrooms in a bedroom. She_ _’s checking **every** door, see, she wants to say, but she doesn_ _’t even know who it is that’s doing this._

_And the door shuts behind her._

_Eres spins to face it. The water is up to her chest, now, and rising higher by the second._ _“Wait, no—” but the door won’t open again, no matter how she pulls and tugs and kicks and shoves at it. The door is sealed shut, and she is trapped in a tiny little washroom with water spilling out from the drains and everywhere she looks and—_

 _And it_ _’s up to her neck, now, and now it’s passing her chin, and her mouth, and—_

 **_Water pressure,_ ** _she thinks to herself. She tries to be logical. The pressure must have sealed the door shut, so once there_ _’s the same amount of water on both sides, once the room fills completely—she’ll be able to open the door again and head for the second floor. She’d been just a few steps from the stairs, before. She’d be fine, just—_

 _Except the water closes over her head, and she holds her breath and holds it and she reaches for the door handle and pulls, and pulls, and pulls, and she cannot get it open and she_ _’s going to be stuck here and what fucking door is she supposed to find if she can’t even get out of this room and—_

_And it strikes her, then._

_None of this is real. She_ _’s dreaming. She can’t open the door. She knows she can’t open the door. She won’t be able to._

_But if this is a dream, that means her body is still out there, in the real world. Not surrounded by water. In the **dream** she is, sure, but—but not in reality. The dream is just a dream. _

_It_ _’s one thing to be able to tell herself that. To know that the water isn’t real. It’s quite another thing entirely to feel herself submerged in it, to feel herself floating, to feel every bit like this world is as real as anything else—and tell herself that she must drown. That she must **willingly** drown herself—that she needs to breathe it in, or she will never wake. _

_If she breathes—if she breathes it in, and she doesn_ _’t die, then that’s proof. That’s proof this is all a dream. It’s proof that no part of her mind will be able to deny. She’ll be forced to—to open the door. To wake. To end the dream once and for all._

 _If she holds her breath, she won_ _’t be able to keep herself from breathing eventually. Eventually, that instinct will kick in, and—wouldn’t she be holding her breath in reality, too? If she doesn’t breathe on her own, before someone **makes** her—would that mean she wouldn_ _’t wake at all? Would the door remain closed forever?_

_Would she be drowning forever?_

_Eres can_ _’t take that chance._

 _She knows it. Wrong door. Claude told her to wake up. Isran too. And when she does, Serana will be waiting for her, she_ _’s sure of it—what a wild dream this is. Serana will just tell her she needs to stop eating right before she goes to sleep, it’s just making her dreams more vivid._

 _Fine, she thinks. She_ _’ll do it. She’ll breathe. She has to, or—if she died here, in a dream, would she die in real life? It’s possible, isn’t it?_

_Five. Four—_

_She makes herself count down, because she tries to do it suddenly and can_ _’t. Her chest is starting to ache. Her head is beginning to swim._

 _It_ _’s not real, she tells herself. It’s not real. Breathe, and you’ll know it’s not real. Three._

 **_Breathe, and you die_ ** _. The doubt in her whispers. The logic. The reason in her. Every nerve in her body wants to listen to it, is desperate to listen to it—don_ _’t you see?! They scream at her, You’ll die if you do this! You can’t breathe underwater! You’ll drown!_

_Two._

**_Not me_ ** _, Eres thinks. Because she_ _’s not really here. Neither is the water. None of it is. She won’t drown._

_One._

_Eres_ _’ mouth opens, and water rushes to fill her lungs, something cool and crisp and the logic in her waits for the pain, for the drowning, for the death—but it never comes, no, and the water fills her, the cool of it chills her from the inside out, settling comfortably into her lungs like it belonged there, like she had been meant to breathe water her entire life._

_The door trembles._

**_Wake up, Eres._ **

_The door bursts open, and the current rips her through its open doorway and—_

* * *

They have decided they will wait, and so they wait.

Though Auria still cares for Eres in more personal matters - such as bathing and dressing her as necessary - it is Serana who spends the most time in Eres’ bedchambers, watching over her. Keeping her company.

Sometimes, Serana speaks to her - updates on the Keep’s reconstruction, “They’ve started work on Tomlen’s roof today,” on Mirabelle’s research alongside Urag, for the _Oghma Infinium,_ “They’re still trying to find a way to access the book’s pages without anyone dying or anything.” Updates on other things, for example, like the fact that Delphine and Esbern and Inigo have all arrived just last week, having been sent word from Serana herself of Eres’ condition.

Esbern has made himself a nuisance, most notably to Valerica, whose work he has inserted himself in without invitation. Esbern _is_ an accomplished mage, and it does seem he has some mastery of alchemy, as well, but her mother has never had much patience for old, rambling men, and so often the laboratory work is a bit of a strained affair.

“Remind me to applaud her, later,” Serana had said to Eres, once, remarking of how very much Valerica must have had to swallow her pride to accept Esbern’s help at all. Valerica is not a vocal woman, when it comes to love, but she is a woman who shows it through her actions - and Serana supposes, at some point, that she must give her mother credit for trying.

Delphine and Isran, on the other hand, seemed to have teamed up to terrorize Eres’ guard. The morning and evening drills have only become that much harsher since Delphine’s arrival, with her own dissatisfaction with them compounded alongside Isran’s usual perfectionism. Serana would have pitied them, were it not for the fact that their training had made them far more elite than any town guard she’d seen in Skyrim so far. Perhaps only the guards in Solitude could compete with them, now.

For Serana herself, there are some days when Inigo comes to visit her, and Eres. At first she had not been quite amenable to the idea, with how often he liked to rile her—but he spoke to Eres as though she were awake, provided the brightness of his company when Serana was too drained to do so herself. He offered relief from the strain of holding herself together, and now she must instead look upon him with gratitude rather than annoyance.

She had known Inigo a good man—or cat, rather. His determination to follow Eres into Coldharbour was proof enough of that. But she had not been especially fond of him herself, for the way that he often inserted himself into conversations and places he did not belong. Perhaps that had been unfair to him, simply to dislike him because his presence meant she was not alone with Eres, but, she has never claimed not to be a little bit selfish at times.

Inigo has proven it, though, several times over, that Eres had chosen wisely in those she allows close to her. Serana had known, too, that Eres had always had a discerning taste, and very little patience for those who were not worth the time—it had just taken Serana a bit of time to accept that, herself.

When Inigo is not present, however, there is often Auria, or Mirabelle, or some combination of the two. Mirabelle is not in Fellburg as often as she had been recently, and even Serana has started to see the strain of the constant expense of magic upon her from the back-and-forth hopping between the College and Fellburg every few days. Mirabelle is insistent that they will make progress, soon, that they are just on the cusp of a breakthrough, and Serana cannot judge her for it.

Auria is like clockwork. She arrives just after dawn, each morning, to run the bath. Serana, well accustomed to the routine after nearly two weeks, helps to carry her into the washroom, and then leaves Auria to it. Auria will wash and dress her, and Serana will sometimes set Eres in the lounge beside the window, on the clearer days, just so that Eres can be out of bed for a time, even if she is not conscious.

Auria feeds her after her bath - usually a thin broth that can be easily swallowed, and with more patience than Serana had thought possible. Then she is fed again just past midday, and once more at dusk, just before sunset. Serana has not asked about the other things - that is beyond her realm of expertise, and not quite what she would like to know, besides. Eres is well taken care of, and that is enough for her.

Some days, Auria stays - she tells stories of Valenwood, though whether she tells them to Serana or to Eres, she isn’t sure. Others, Auria struggles to spend too much time with her, her grief plain on her face. On those days, Serana must often force her to leave, to take a break and take care of herself as much as she cares for Eres.

Many days, Eres’ room is as still and silent as a library, filled only with whatever sound Serana herself provides. On occasion, she has read books for her, too, though admittedly - she spends much of her time there poring over Eres’ journal, trying to puzzle out a meaning from what is written there.

She does not know if there is a clue within those pages. She’s not sure it matters if there is one. But it gives her something to do, something to occupy her mind with so she does not sink too deeply into despair, and so she continues. She has borrowed several books from the Arcaneum for the sake of it, and now Eres’ desk is cluttered not with Eres’ things, but Serana’s - her notes upon what she has found, on what few connections she has managed to make.

There is not much, but there is just enough to drive a woman mad.

Serana contemplates throwing the _36 Lessons of Vivec_ out the window. She’d hit a dead end with the _Stone_ connection several days ago. Faced with a brick wall, she had instead pivoted to follow another trail as far as she could take it. She’d pored over what had been known of the god Shor before he had gone missing, of his alters, of his aspects… Shor and Shezarr were one and the same, after all, and perhaps she might find a connection somewhere between his previous aspects and Eres herself.

She had spent much of the past few days poring over whatever she could find on Pelinal, on Ysmir—and that had led her to Vivec, and _his_ writings were near as incomprehensible as Eres’ were. She is _certain_ that there is a meaning to Vivec’s writings, of course, but the way he wrote in riddles made it an exercise in frustration just to attempt to discern any meaning from them.

She’s gone through six of the damn things and she still hasn’t a clue what _lessons_ Vivec was trying to impart on the world. If vampires _could_ get migraines, she would be the first, at this rate.

Serana takes a moment to look back at her notes. She hadn’t found anything relevant in the first five books. But perhaps if she looks at the sixth a bit closer…

She hears a skip, a flutter. A skip in a beat that has not changed in days, in weeks, and she is out of her chair almost before her mind has recognized it as Eres’ heartbeat.

For a moment, she thinks she’s imagined it. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d jumped to conclusions for a sudden twitch or a flutter of her eyelids, but, no—Eres’ heart is _definitely_ beating faster than it was, and there is no one who would know that better than Serana herself.

Serana hovers at the side of the bed, uncertain. She presses two fingers at the side of Eres’ neck, frowning at the way her pulse bounds in her neck. She doesn’t want to jump to the worst conclusion, but, could a nightmare do such a thing? Increase her blood pressure so suddenly alongside her heartrate? Something about this doesn’t seem quite right to her.

It is not her proudest moment, that it takes her several seconds to realize what about this picture seems wrong to her. It takes her a moment to realize where the tension in Eres’ form has come from, why it seems as though her mouth has tightened, as though her brow has furrowed in her sleep.

It takes her a few seconds to realize that she is not breathing. That her chest has stilled, and though her heart continues to race, there is no oxygen being fed to her—

“Auria!” Auria is crashing through the door not half a second later, eyes wide and half-frantic.

“What’s happened?”

“She’s not breathing!”

Auria does not waste time coming around the side of the bed but rather she launches herself right across it, clambering until she is at Eres’ other side, until she has her own hand on Eres’ neck, feeling the bounding of her pulse for herself, seeing the stillness of her chest.

“Auria—”

“Sleep apnea,” Auria says, deceptively calm, but there is a muted panic behind her eyes that does not match her words. “It could just be sleep apnea. How long has she been like this?”

“Half a minute, maybe?” Serana’s mind races, but she can’t recall if Eres had stopped breathing _first_ , and that had caused the racing heart, or if it had been the other way around. “Two minutes? I don’t know.”

“It can’t have been two minutes,” Auria mutters, shaking her head. But she pulls her sleeves back from her hands, rolls them to her elbows. Auria reaches for Eres’ temples. “Find Mira. I may have to course correct, and if—”

It happens so quickly that Serana doesn’t even see her move.

She blinks, and Auria’s hands are halted in mid-air, held away from Eres’ head, caught at the wrists—not by _Serana_ , but—

Eres’ eyes are open. Fixed upon Auria, who gapes down at her from above. There is a distance in them, a sense that she is not quite looking _at_ Auria, but through her, but she—she _breathes_ , long, and deep, and she exhales, and inhales again, and her vice-like grip on Auria’s wrists loosen, just the slightest.

Eres closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them again, she is there - she is present. She is aware. She is looking right at Auria, with a knowing in her eyes, something that is not quite accusatory but close to it.

“Told you to stay out of my head,” Eres mutters, and pushes her away.

Auria sits back on her heels, and simply stares back at her. “I—”

“Eres—” Serana almost leaps for her, almost gathers her in her arms and tells her she loves her, right then and there, fuck all else, but Auria is quick to hold up a hand.

“No, not yet. I must examine her first. Eres,” she looks at Eres, who looks back at her all too easily for a woman who has been unconscious for just over two weeks. “Tell us your name.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “What?”

“Your name. Your full name, please, I must check that your faculties are intact.”

Eres sighs. “Eres Svanhilde.”

“And how old are you?” Eres answers that correctly, as well. “And do you remember what you were doing last, before this? Do you know what happened to you?”

“I was dreaming.” Eres doesn’t answer beyond that.

But Eres looks at Serana, then, and there is a part of her that breaks to have her eyes upon her again. Then, with a bit of a rueful smile, she says, “Good morning.”

Just like that. _Good morning_. Like she hadn’t—like Serana hadn’t spent the last month worried that she’d never wake again.

The laugh escapes her without her meaning it to. She closes her mouth, setting Eres with as serious a look as she can manage.

“That’s not funny. I thought—” she doesn’t have to pretend to be serious, then. She can feel that void opening up in her chest again, the feeling not unlike that of her heart being ripped out of it. “I thought you weren’t going to wake up again.”

Eres’ rueful smile fades, a little. She does not fight Auria while the woman examines her, even as she shines light into each of her eyes - Serana watches her, herself, satisfied to see each of her pupils contract as expected, perfectly reactive, perfectly equal.

“Sorry,” Eres says quietly. She does look sorry, at least. But she also just seems… strangely settled. Like she is simply content to be there, no matter what has happened to her. No matter how long it has been. “It was the Time Wound, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was, you idiot. I told you it was dangerous.”

“We have established that I am an idiot.” There is a rasp in Eres’ voice, one that makes her sound weaker than Serana would like. It makes it hard to laugh at that joke, even if it is true. “Are you going to dissect me now, or what?” Eres asks suddenly, turning her eyes to Auria, who is still inspecting her. “I’m fine.”

“You were just _unconscious_ for a full month, Eresael. You are the furthest from fine.”

“I’m fine _now_ ,” Eres amends. “Let me get up. This bed is making me sore.”

“I did try to move you,” Serana tells her. She ignores Auria’s heated glance when she moves to lift Eres into a sitting position. The faster Eres is out of bed, the less likely it is that she will fall asleep again - right? “Are you sure you’re okay to move? Are you tired? Feeling ill?”

“I’m tired of being in this _bed_ ,” Eres huffs. She does attempt to get out on her own—but her legs do not hold her weight, and she falls quickly back into a seated position. She sighs, reaching for Serana’s hand. “Well, help me get up, would you? Don’t just stand there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Serana replies, amused despite herself. “Boss me around a little more, why don’t you?”

Eres pauses, raising a brow at her. From somewhere behind her, Auria lets out a long suffering sigh.

“You could at least wait until I’ve left the room.”

“What?” Serana’s eyes snap to Auria. Eres snorts, and it clicks. “Oh, _no_ , I didn’t mean it _that_ way, she’s just—”

Eres pats her arm. “Sure you didn’t,” she says, sounding as thoroughly unconvinced as Auria looks. “At least let me recover first, Serana. I _just_ woke up.”

 _“Eres_ —” Eres sends her an impish little smirk, and Serana glares at her. “You haven’t been up for five minutes and you’re already causing trouble.”

“I am very talented,” Eres replies easily. “Now help me up already. Where’s Isran?”

“What does Isran have to do with anything?” Serana grumbles, though she does at last help to pull Eres to her feet. It takes the girl a moment to stand on her own, on legs that have grown used to not holding weight.

Eres pauses. Frowns. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I just have the feeling I need to see him. I think I saw him in my dream.”

“Dream?” Serana exchanges a glance with Auria. Auria looks just as uneasy.

“I can’t remember it now. Something about water. I got trapped in a washroom.” Eres’ frown deepens, but she shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter now—how long has it been? Has Alduin attacked again? Did anyone get in touch with the Jarl?”

“Jarl?” Auria echoes. “ _Alduin_? Eres, this is hardly the time for you to worry about such things—”

“It can’t wait, _maman_ ,” Eres says, and she speeds through it so quickly she doesn’t even seem to notice what she has called her. “I can guarantee it’s going to take a while to convince the Jarl to let use use his dragon…trap thing, whatever it is.” She looks at Serana then, frowning. “Why didn’t you go to him already?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Serana retorts, “maybe because you were _in a coma?_ _”_

“I told you, I don’t matter. Even if it wasn’t me, someone—”

“And I told _you_ , this world doesn’t matter to me if you’re not in it.” Serana does not miss the sudden raise of Auria’s brows, and she doesn’t give a damn what the woman thinks about her, right now. “So no, I didn’t give a fuck about Alduin, or the Jarl, or anyone else. I was worried about _you_. Everyone was.”

Serana feels like shaking her, a little. Maybe if she did, she might be able to knock some sense into her. Waking up not _five minutes ago_ and she’s already talking about fighting _dragons_?

“We _just_ talked about this, Eres. You’ve got to start caring more about yourself. We can worry about trapping a dragon later, once we make sure you’re not going to fall into another coma at the drop of a hat. Auria?”

“If she would allow me a full examination, I could give an estimate on the likelihood.” Auria tells her. “From what I am seeing now, I would say that we may be safe, for the moment, so long as Eres does _not_ seek out anything that would tire her unnecessarily. For example, _trapping a dragon_.”

“Weren’t you _just_ examining me?” Eres mutters, but she does not fight it when Auria comes to her again, with the soft light of healing magic suffusing her hands. “You’d better not try to get in my head again.”

“I am _not_ , _mikros_. I am only checking for injury. I would not do that again without your permission.”

Serana’s eyes narrow. Auria catches her gaze from over Eres’ shoulder, and there is a tiny, near imperceptible shake of her head.

If Auria thinks she’s going to hide it from Eres if she asks about it, she’s got another thing coming. Eres deserves to know what they had planned on doing to her if she hadn’t awakened. She deserves to have a say in it.

Auria steps back at last, seemingly satisfied. “So far as I can tell, everything appears to be in order. I would not expect her to lose consciousness again, but…” she shakes her head. “We also cannot be sure if this is a physical illness, either. It may be that I would not be able to tell.”

“What about before?”

At that, Auria’s lips press tightly together. “Before, there was—I can’t quite explain it. A feeling of fog, within you. It felt as though there was something obscuring it from my sight. Now…” her lips curl into a troubled frown. “There has been a shift, somewhere. I am not sure I could explain it. But, it seems to be a positive one, as far as I can tell. It does not feel quite so heavy as before. _However_ ,” she adds quickly, her gaze sharpening, “that does _not_ mean you can go off fighting dragons.”

“I would settle for going downstairs, at the moment,” Eres drawls. “I smell food.”

Auria rolls her eyes then. “One track mind,” she mutters, shaking her head. To Serana, she says, “I will get in touch with Mira. She may wish to examine Eres as well, just to be sure. It can never hurt to have a second opinion. In the meantime, I will trust you to keep an eye on her?”

“Of course,” Serana answers, even as Eres scowls at the woman.

“I _also_ ,” Auria adds, “expect you not to engage in anything that will—strain her, in any way.”

Serana stares numbly after her as the woman spins on her heel. By the time she manages to remember her words, Auria is long gone. “Does she think I’m some kind of insatiable pig?”

“Apparently.” Eres chuckles. “You _did_ say—”

“I didn’t mean it that way!”

“Of course,” Eres allows, but she is still smiling at her. When she reaches for Serana’s collar, she leans down without her needing to be asked.

She lets herself sink into the feeling of Eres’ warm lips against her own, into the smile that she feels against her mouth.

“Good morning,” Eres repeats to her.

Serana chuckles, despite herself. “Evening.” 

“Good _evening_ , then,” Eres amends. “I’m sorry I scared you. I should have listened to you.”

“You should have,” Serana agrees. “But we’ll work on that. _Starting_ with you taking it easy for the next few weeks.”

_“Weeks?”_

“Did I stutter?”

“Serana—”

“Nope. You’re listening, now. Starting today.”

 _“Weeks,_ Serana?”

“Weeks,” Serana confirms. She squeezes the hand in hers as she helps Eres down to the dining room. Everyone will be elated to see her up and about on her own. She’s already doing much better than she had the last time, when she hadn’t been able to walk right after…. Serana can’t be _too_ selfish - she will make sure everyone knows that she’s doing better, for now, let them see and talk to her…

But tonight, Serana will tell her. When they are alone, and there is no one around to interrupt them, Serana will tell her. No more wasting time. She knows it, now. She’d almost managed to make herself believe that she had all the time in the world.

She knows better, now. Time can always run out. She’s going to make the most of it—of this—while she can.

* * *

Dinner is not quite a relaxing affair.

As a child, Eres had often taken her meals alone. Her father was often working - or, at least, claiming to be working - and aside from herself, there certainly weren’t any other children around that she would eat dinner with. As such, having _family_ meals had never been something Eres grew accustomed to.

In her time at Fellburg, she sometimes did eat with Yosef and the others, but more often than not, Johanna would simply bring her meal to her study, or her room, or if she could not find her, leave it wrapped on a plate on the countertop. Sometimes, that plate would still be there when Eres came down in the morning for her tea, because she so often got so absorbed in her work that she would forget to eat entirely, and by the time she remembered, she would be too tired to bother.

There is something about eating with others that is comforting, yes. Cozy in the way of it feeling like she is wanted, there, that people care for her - but in another sense, it is also draining, in its own way.

It is draining to feel their eyes on her, all of them looking at her like they are afraid that she will collapse at any moment when they think she is not looking. They take pains to include her in conversation in ways she supposes she should be grateful for, that she should take to heart, but—some part of it feels insincere, to her, even if it isn’t. It feels too much like they are trying to draw her out, like they are trying to force a sense of normalcy that does not exist.

Serana seems to notice it early. She sits at Eres’ left side, nursing a single celebratory glass of wine, and her mere presence provides a sense of stability that may not have been there without her. Even so, Serana is observant, and they are not even halfway through the meal when Eres feels a hand squeeze gently at her knee.

Eres is getting better at being honest with Serana, at letting _her_ see things, if no one else. She is not so good at being that way with others, especially when she knows their hearts are in the right places.

In the end, it is Serana who disperses them.

“Alright,” Serana says, as soon as there is a lull in the conversation. “Eres is still tired, everyone. You can talk to her tomorrow.”

There is a moment where it looks as though someone may argue—that _Yosef_ might argue. Eres looks at him, and there is a sinking in her chest, and she feels drained ever more for the memory of how he resented her, the last time they had seen each other. She had almost managed to forget that they had not left on good terms.

Now, Yosef frowns, but something he sees in Serana’s expression must dissuade him. Instead of arguing it, he looks instead to Eres and bids her a good night.

Eres does not see that resentment in his eyes, now, but she cannot help but feel as though her condition is the only reason he has decided to let it go. Is it just that she had fallen ill again, that he had decided he didn’t hate her anymore? Was he trying to make up for it now, just so he wouldn’t feel guilty about it?

Serana helps her to stand - once she is standing, it is easier, but getting up from a seated position is still more difficult than it needs to be. Her legs feel weak and unfamiliar, even more so than they had the first time around. It feels as though she has to remind them how to hold her weight each time she stands, that she must focus to ensure her legs function correctly when she walks.

“Come on,” Serana guides her, gentle in all things. “Let’s get upstairs and have a look at you before you sleep again.”

Eres waits until they are in the dim halls, heading for the stairs, before she answers, so that she will not be heard. “I’m not tired,” she says, cross despite herself. “Not like that.” The last thing she wants to do is go back to sleep.

“I know,” Serana says. And it does sound like she knows. Like she understands. Eres had known that she would. “I would still feel more comfortable if you let them take a look at you one last time, tonight.”

Eres sighs. The stairs are just in front of her. She contemplates forcing herself up them on her own, forcing herself to struggle up them knowing how much effort it would take. “I hate this…”

“I know.” Serana does not ask, this time. Her arm comes around her waist, another behind her knees—and she is an invalid all over again, being carried up the stairs as though she cannot walk on her own. “We tried to do some exercises for you, but it’s still going to take you a while to get your strength up.”

Serana, wordlessly, sets her down as soon as they have reached the top of the stairs. She would have known that Eres would want to walk the rest of the way on her own.

“Weeks…” Eres mutters. Her mood darkens further. “We can’t wait weeks, Serana. You have to take me to Whiterun—”

“One thing at a time, Eres.”

Eres frowns. Serana seems far too calm about this. She’d thought she would argue. She _would have_ , normally, telling Eres that she needs to rest, probably, that they can revisit it later, but…

Auria is in the room when they arrive. Mirabelle at her side.

“When did you get here?”

“A pleasure to see you as well, Eres,” Mirabelle drawls in response, though there is amusement in her gaze, and—it does seem that she is happy to see her, in her own muted kind of way. “Your mother called for me.”

“I did say I wanted a second opinion,” Auria reminds her. “Before you go to sleep, this time.”

“I will make it quick,” Mirabelle promises. “I know you must be rather exhausted, all the same.”

“I’m fine.”

At that, Mirabelle merely quirks a brow, clearly unconvinced. “Sit, if you please.”

Eres sits, though she is not pleased about it. She remains still as Mirabelle passes glowing hands over her—from top to bottom, and back again, with a particular focus around her temples.

“Hmm…” Mirabelle steps back. The glow fades. “That _is_ quite odd.”

“Is it not?” Auria replies, frowning herself. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Like _what_?” Eres scowls at the both of them. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”

“Well, plainly speaking…” Mirabelle starts, frowning herself, “You are in perfectly good health.”

“And this is a problem because…?”

“Because, by all accounts, you should not be.” Mirabelle says. “I did not examine you myself, previously, but your mother is an accomplished healer. From what she has told me, it appears that there was at least some indication of your condition, previously, even if it would not have been obvious to others. A certain—incorrectness, if you would.”

“Incorrectness?”

“Do you remember how I told you of my glamor?” Auria asks her. “How it does not change what someone sees, but merely encourages them to look past it?”

Eres nods - once Auria had dropped that glamor, it had been like everything had slid suddenly into place. Like there had been merely a sheer curtain over it before, and she had simply never noticed it.

“There was something,” Auria explains haltingly, “the last time this occurred. Something unusual, about your mind. I felt it, whenever I healed you - even before I attempted the mind-healing itself, it was something that… permeated your person, in a manner. I assumed it to be an effect of your experiences in Coldharbour, that perhaps some residual of Oblivion—or perhaps, the mantling—remained on your person.”

“And it’s gone now?” Eres asks her. “Shouldn’t that be a good thing?”

But Auria only looks more troubled. “That is the thing, _mikros_. I do not believe it is gone. I believe it has simply… shifted elsewhere. Somewhere I can no longer sense it. Mira?”

Mirabelle nods. “I sensed nothing out of the usual. Perhaps we should take this as good news, but I admit that it concerns me. Do you remember what you dreamed of, while you were unconscious? Anything in particular that stood out?”

“Not really.” Thinking back on it now, the only thing she can really remember is water. A lot of it. And—something about breathing it? “It was just a dream. About a flood, or something.”

“Nothing else?”

“I don’t remember.” Eres frowns at them. “I don’t know what you expect me to say. I’ve never remembered much of my dreams before.”

“Yes, but something has changed, now. It is possible that, too, would change.”

Mirabelle looks far too bothered for someone who is only worried about a _dream_.

“You look tired, Mirabelle.” Eres eyes her, trying to place what it is about her that seems different beside that. “Have you been sleeping?”

Mirabelle blinks. “Mothering me now, are you?” She does send her a quick, wry smile, however. “I am as well as can be expected, I suppose. I have been conducting research as of late. Sometimes that means a few sleepless nights. Nothing to worry about.”

“Research on what, exactly?”

Mirabelle raises a brow. “I did not think you so interested in my career.”

“I’m not.” Eres says bluntly. “I just have a feeling it has something to do with me. Does it?”

From the way Auria and Mirabelle exchange glances, she is almost certain it does.

“It is a book,” Mirabelle says after a moment. “One which boasts some particular magical properties. I and my colleagues have been attempting to discern a way to combat whatever may be harmful to those who attempt reading it.”

“Maybe it isn’t meant to be read.” Eres shrugs. “Leave it alone.”

It seems to her that this would be an obvious course of action for any artifact known to be dangerous. If it was such a danger that one could not even read it without magical protection - perhaps it should not be read. A simple concept, Eres believes—but all of them stare at her as though she has said something monumental.

“What?”

“What makes you believe it should not be read?” Mirabelle asks her. “Is there something telling you that?”

Eres stares back at her. “…Because it’s clearly dangerous? Do you all think I’m hearing voices now? I’m not _crazy_.”

“No, of course not, _mikros,_ only—”

“It’s the _Oghma Infinium_.” Serana says plainly, and meets her eyes without hesitation. “It was in that box Septimus was trying to open.”

“Septimus? All that was for a book?”

“So it seems,” Serana says. “Have you heard of it?”

“The Oghma-whatever? No. Should I have?”

“No,” Serana answers. “Just wondering.”

Eres looks between them all, at the strange, measuring way that Auria and Mirabelle look at her—at the way Serana seems as though she is talking _around_ something rather than about it directly. She doesn’t know what it is, yet, but something about this picture is _off_.

“Wait—” Eres looks down at her hands. She counts her fingers. She looks at the clock, and looks again, and the time does not change. She looks at the reflection of Mirabelle in the mirror, exactly as it is supposed to be.

“Wait…?” Serana asks.

Eres counts her fingers again. She considers counting her toes, too. But she has five on each hand, and that is what she expected. She looks around her room, too, and tries to find anything that does not seem correct. “Who moved my chair? Did someone move it?”

“I moved it.” Serana frowns at her, concern growing in her eyes. “Are you feeling alright, Eres?”

“I…” Her head is starting to hurt, a little. That’s good, isn’t it? That means it’s real, doesn’t it? She can’t feel pain in a dream, can she? Just to be sure, she pinches hard at the sensitive skin at the inside of her wrist. “It’s real,” she assures herself, quietly under her breath. “I’m not dreaming.” She’s _not_. She woke up. She’s fine.

“You are not dreaming,” Mirabelle confirms. There is something almost pitying about the tone of her voice. “I understand it may be difficult for you to trust that, at first. But I assure you, this is real.”

_Time to wake up, kid._

Isran. That’s right. She’d seen him in the dream. He’d been in the office. The office room where—where she’d found her father. He’d finally drunk himself into a stupor he wouldn’t wake from, and—

Wait—was that right? Was that what happened to him? Her brow furrows as she tries to recall it, not from the dream but from _memory_ , from what had really happened, and she can’t… She can’t quite remember how she found him.

She remembers after. She remembers the funeral. The cleaning out of all her things after they’d seized all his holdings. She remembers finding the deed in the little deposit box he’d forgotten he had.

She remembers… She remembers cleaning, something. Something on the floor. Something…

“Let’s let her rest.” Serana says quietly. “It took a lot out of her. We can worry about the rest of this another time.”

“Serana, do call on me if anything changes. I do not like that she—” Auria lowers her voice into a whisper, as though she expects that Eres will not hear her, “I do not like that she is not able to tell. It does not bode well.”

“These things take time,” Mirabelle says, equally softly. It feels rather like all of them have forgotten she has ears. “She will become more grounded in the following days. I imagine her dreams must have been quite vivid, even if she does not remember them. It will take time for her to adjust, just as it did the time before.”

“I’ll watch over her,” Serana promises. “I’ll make sure she takes it easy.”

“I am counting on you.” Auria hugs her swiftly. Eres only manages half of a response in turn. “Good night, _mikros_. Call me if you have need of anything, no matter what time it may be.”

Mirabelle also bids her farewell, though she does not hug her. She instead lays a hand upon her shoulder, wishes her well, and leaves.

“Eres.”

The door closes behind them. They are alone. Something about the door closing feels final. It feels like it should be open, for some reason.

“Eres, what is it?”

Eres presses her fingers into her eyes. She can’t put the images in order. Had she seen that in the dream, or was that her memory? Which part of it was real?

“I can’t tell what’s real anymore.” She is almost afraid to say it aloud, but if there is anyone who she can say this to without fear of judgment, it would be Serana. “There’s—there’s all this stuff in my head, and I can’t tell what’s a memory and what’s a dream. I thought—I thought I saw my dad, for a second…”

“Sounds like a nightmare to me.” Serana reaches for her, pulls her to standing. Eres frowns when Serana takes her to the seat in the window. “I figure you were tired of the bed.”

“I am,” she confirms, “but—”

“When you woke up before,” Serana says quietly, “looking at the sky comforted you. Maybe it will help now, too.”

Eres quiets. She can’t argue that. Maybe it will.

It does, as it turns out—but Eres cannot be sure how much of that comfort comes from the view of the night sky just beyond, and how much of it comes from Serana’s arms around her. She had not been awake, for—a month, was it? She had not been conscious of that time, and yet somehow… Somehow it still feels as though it has been a long time since she has been near her, this way.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Eres almost forgets what she’s talking about. Then, “Oh. You mean the dream?”

“Whichever,” she feels more than sees Serana’s shrug. “Whatever is on your mind. I’m here for you.” A pause, then, and Serana’s arms tighten around her. “I missed you, Eres. I’m just… happy, to hear your voice again. No matter what you want to talk about.”

“Nothing that interesting.” Eres sighs. “I just can’t remember how he died, now.”

For a moment, Serana doesn’t say anything at all. Then, carefully, she asks, “Was that a matter up for debate?”

“I don’t know.” Eres’ frown deepens. “I didn’t think so, but…”

_The man who wanted your father dead._

Cleaning blood from the floors. The walls. Throwing away all the books that had been stained with it. The Imperials, hovering around his body. Questioning her. Acting like she had something to do with it. She—

No… That wasn’t right. Hadn’t he drunk himself to death? Why couldn’t she remember it?

“I don’t know. It’s making my head hurt to think about it.” What does it matter, anyways. Her father is long dead, now. No matter how he’d died, he’d had it coming one way or another. “It’s nothing. Just a weird dream, I guess.”

“It’ll be better in a few days,” Serana tells her. “It will get easier for you to tell things apart.”

“Will it?” Eres is not sure. She doesn’t know how anyone could be sure, if they had her history. Especially with the Eye, and all… Who could say?

“Don’t you bring that up again,” Serana mutters to her, as if she can hear her very thoughts. “You’re not crazy, Eres. Just a bit stupid sometimes.”

“Thanks,” Eres drawls, though she can’t say she’s offended. Serana’s right, after all. The Time Wound _had_ been a stupid idea. But she hadn’t had a choice.

“I really do want you to take me to Whiterun.”

“Eres,” Serana sighs. “It’s not even been a full day.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Eres turns to look at her, look her in the eyes so that she knows she means it. “People are dying, Serana.”

“People die all the time.”

“Not from _dragons._ The Jarl isn’t going to agree right away. I have to convince him, and that will take time. It’s already been a month since then, how many people have been hurt because I’ve been lying around in bed?”

“How many people will end up hurt if you jump into it too fast and just end up in a coma again?” Serana fires back at her. “This is _Alduin_ we’re talking about, Eres. You can’t just go in there half-assed and expect to win. I’m not going to let you get yourself killed.”

“ _Let_ me?”

“Considering you can’t get to Whiterun on your own right now, yes.” Serana looks at her, nonplussed. “I’m not taking you up there any time soon.”

“ _Serana._ ”

“ _Eres.”_

Eres scowls at her. Serana does not seem even remotely bothered by it. “We would just be going there to negotiate with the Jarl, get him to let us use his dragon trap,” Eres tries a different approach. Maybe she can make Serana agree to it. “Not anything physical.”

“Uh-huh,” Serana says flatly. “Tell me another.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Serana says. “I know you. You’ll end up getting in trouble one way or another. You always do. You’ll say we’re only going there to talk, and next thing I know, we’ve got a dragon in the palace and you’re running off to fight Alduin.”

Eres makes a face. She wants to deny that. She wants to say, no, of course that wouldn’t happen. But she’s always been a terrible liar.

“Tell you what. Let’s compromise,” Serana offers. “You stay here. You rest.” Eres opens her mouth, already disagreeing – but Serana holds up a hand. “We’ll send Delphine and Esbern down to talk to the Jarl.”

“They’re not Dragonborn.”

“They’re not,” Serana agrees. “But they serve you. That means they can arrange things on your behalf. If you want, you can even draft a fancy little letter for the Jarl for them to take with them.”

For some reason, it feels a little bit like Serana is poking fun at her. “I don’t like this compromise.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. But that’s as much as I’m willing to budge.”

“And what happens when the Jarl wants to meet with me personally?” Eres asks her. She doesn’t know the Jarl of Whiterun personally, but she’s willing to bet he won’t just take Delphine and Esbern at their word. He’d want to meet with the famed Dragonborn himself – especially if it meant luring a dragon to Whiterun.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“This is stupid.” She gets where Serana’s coming from, she _does_ —but this is just going to waste more time, which is just more opportunity for Alduin to wreak havoc elsewhere. The sooner they trap that dragon, the sooner they can figure out a plan of attack.

“You know what else is stupid?” Serana asks her, expression tight. “Barreling headfirst back into everything like you haven’t spent the last month in a coma. Do you _want_ to end up dead?”

“You know I don’t.” Eres feels trapped, somehow. Trapped in the way that she can’t just _make_ things be the way they need to be. “I just don’t want anyone _else_ to die.”

“There’s an entire Keep worth of people here who love you,” Serana reminds her gently. “You don’t have to do everything yourself. Let other people help you once in a while.”

Eres tries not to grimace at the thought, she does. But she doesn’t like relying on other people to do what _she_ needs done. What if they did it _wrong_?

“It’s not going to kill you to let someone else take the reins for a while.”

“It might,” Eres mutters.

Serana sighs. She presses a soft kiss to her lips, one that lingers and somehow feels far heavier than it should. When she pulls away, there is an almost fractured look on her face, a quiet desperation in her eyes.

“Do this for me, then.” Her voice is little more than a hushed whisper, thick with emotion. “If you can’t do it for you, then do it for me. I can’t survive losing you.”

Eres does not want Serana to feel this way – to feel like she is lost without her, like Eres is the only thing that keeps her together. Serana has to know that if something ever did happen to her, that she would be able to move on.

“You can,” Eres tells her. “I’m just one person. Nothing’s going to happen to me,” she cannot promise that, but the look in Serana’s eyes is going to break her if she doesn’t fix it. “But if it ever did, you would be fine.”

Serana shakes her head. For a moment it seems that she struggles to speak, that her voice catches in her throat. She sounds utterly broken when she speaks again.

“I’m in love with you, Eres.”

She says it like Eres hadn’t already known it. But, somehow—she makes it sound as though she is somehow _wrong_ for loving her, that there is something _bad_ about it. There is something so oddly defeated about the admission that Eres cannot help but to laugh.

“Well, you don’t have to sound so depressed about it.”

Serana laughs, frowns, and then looks at her sternly. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.” Eres smiles at her, at the way she seems to be fighting her amusement—perhaps it should have been a more serious moment, something with a little more gravitas, but… Serana had just looked so upset that she had not been able to help herself. She’d had to try to make her smile, at least.

“I knew that already.” Eres says to her. It’s not news to her. It couldn’t be, not with all they’d been through. It’s still nice to hear it. “I’m in love with you, too. That’s not something to be upset about.”

“That’s not what I’m upset about.” Whatever small amount of amusement she’d had has faded entirely. “I’m… I’m terrified of what that means, for me. I’m selfish, Eres. I almost—I almost turned you,” she whispers. “Up on that mountain. There was a moment I thought you were dying, and I almost…”

That, however, is news to her. Serana hadn’t mentioned that, the last time they had spoken of it. Before Eres had—fallen asleep, again. Had it been that close of a thing, up there? That would certainly explain why Serana had been so upset. Not that she hadn't had the right to be, but her reaction then makes even more sense now than it had before. 

“I would have turned you, and you would have hated me for it, and—and I…” There is such a profound shame in Serana’s expression that it hurts to look at her. “I don’t know that I would have regretted that. I don’t know that I could regret saving you, even if it meant you hating me.”

“I wouldn’t hate you, first of all.” Eres starts with that, first. “I don’t _want_ to be a vampire.”

That much, at least, is true. She has no problem with Serana being a vampire—she’s only known Serana to be one, and she loves her for everything that she is. She would never ask Serana to be cured anymore than she would ask her to change any other part of herself. Eres loves _all_ of her, just as she is.

But it is true that she would not want that for herself.

“But,” Eres tells her, “if it comes down to it, and there’s no other way to save me…” She shrugs. “Vampirism can be cured. Death can’t be.”

“I—wha?”

Serana looks so dumbfounded that it is a struggle not to laugh at her.

“Were you expecting me to say no?” Eres asks, amused despite herself. “It’s not like lycanthropy, Serana. If it saves me, then it saves me. I can always get cured after. I’ve heard of a mage in Morthal who’s been known to do it. More than once, even.”

“But that’s…”

“It’s still not what I would want.” Eres confirms. “But if I’m dying and it’s a last resort, then… I’m giving you permission to save me, if you can. Does that make you feel a little better?”

Serana’s brows meet. “Don’t say this just because you think it’s what I want. I’d never—”

“I’m not saying it for you.” Eres meets her gaze, holds it so that she can see how very serious she is, so that she can see she is being truthful. “I’m only twenty-four, Serana. I don’t want to die yet either. I’m not going to be mad at you for saving me. Not when it means I’ll get more time with you.”

“Do I _want_ to be a vampire? No,” Eres tells her. “But if gives me a little more time, then…” She shrugs helplessly. “I’d be okay with that. Just don’t take offense if I got cured right after.”

“I prefer you alive,” Serana tells her plainly. “How else would I ever get warm?”

“Oh, is that all I’m good for?” Eres runs with that joke, knows that there is only so much heaviness they can take in one night. “You really did just want a bedwarmer this whole time, didn’t you?”

“Oh, you’ve got me now,” Serana rolls her eyes. “You warm a lot more than my bed, you know.”

Eres raises her brows at that one. “Serana,” she scolds her, feigning a scandalized expression. “Auria said—”

“Not like _that_ , I meant my _heart_.”

“That’s almost worse,” Eres jokes, smirking when Serana scowls at her. “Are all vampires this sappy, or is it just you?”

“Just me, I’m afraid,” Serana drawls. “Don’t go getting any ideas. You’re mine.”

Eres laughs, and there is something warm inside her chest that expands, and expands, and it feels like there is too much to ever fit inside her at once.

“I’m yours,” she tells her, and she has never been surer.

Whether it’s a few more years, a few decades, an eternity—however long the rest of her life is, this is how she wants to spend it. She could spend forever with her, and it would still not be long enough.


	18. Embers

Eres wakes to the feeling of eyes on her, of the sensation of being watched. There is an arm around her waist, a gentle touch drifting along the length of her spine over her tunic.

“Are you just going to stare at me all morning?” Eres does not need to open her eyes. There is only one person whose touch grounds her, whose gaze brings warmth instead of unease.

“Yes.”

Eres smiles, sleepily amused. The room is still just dim enough that it cannot be too late in the morning. She has no intention of getting up just yet. Not when Serana is here with her. Not when her touch threatens to lull her to sleep all over again.

Perhaps that is dangerous, that Serana has such control over her. Does she know? Eres sometimes wonders. Is Serana aware of what power she holds over her? Of how much of her is wrapped up in Serana, of how much it feels as though Serana is merely a part of herself that she had lost and rediscovered?

“I’m okay, you know,” Eres tells her. She shifts closer, closer until Serana moves to accommodate her, until her head is pillowed on Serana’s chest, until Serana is half-trapped beneath her, and there is a moment she wonders if perhaps it is too much.

There is a hesitance, there, an uncertainty of wondering just how much contact Serana is alright with—but she feels the arms around her waist tighten in response, and she cannot help the contented sigh that falls from her lips.

She doesn’t know how she’s not noticed it before. Perhaps she had just never listened quite close enough to hear it.

But with her ear pressed against Serana’s chest, she can hear something—something like a deep, bass-like thrumming, and it takes her a long moment to place just what it is.

“Eres—”

“Shh!”

“Excuse me?”

“Shh!” Eres repeats, raising her head to glare at her shortly. “Be quiet for a moment.” Serana frowns, and Eres lifts herself up quickly to kiss her.

“Just a second,” she tells her, and then she lays her head on her chest again, pressing her ear flush against the skin.

“What for?”

“Hush.” Eres taps a hand against her collar to quiet her, and there—she hears it again. The sound is so low and deep and slow that she might have mistaken it for a rumbling, had she not known what she was looking for.

It is a pulsing sound, one that is so long and drawn out that it is almost impossible to identify where it begins and ends. If only she had some way to make it _louder_ , she could be sure.

“Am I allowed to speak now?” Serana asks dryly, after a long, silent minute.

“You have a heartbeat.” Eres lifts her head to look at her, to see Serana blink slowly back at her as though she hadn’t quite processed what she’d said. “I didn’t know you had one.”

Serana stares at her for a long moment. Then, finally, she says simply, “Oh.”

“Did you not know?” Eres wonders, because Serana does not look like someone who has been told something they already know. She looks like someone who has been told something they should have known a long time ago, and are only just now realizing it.

“I’ve never thought about it,” Serana admits. She presses a hand to her neck, and frowns. “Are you sure?”

“It makes sense.” At least, Eres thinks it does. “I thought it was just magic that kept you alive. Or, sort of alive,” she says. “But you have a heartbeat. It’s just… very, very slow.”

She presses her fingers against Serana’s chest, in the same place she had heard it, and she does not even feel the slightest of pulsations, there.

“I can’t feel it either. Ask your mother.”

Serana makes a face. “I’ll take your word for it.”

By the look on her face, Eres can guess that Serana is not too keen on the idea of cuddling with her mother, even if it was just for the sake of hearing a heartbeat she hadn’t known existed until now.

“Suit yourself.” Eres lays down again, and she does not plan on moving any time soon. She can just see the filtering of soft dawn light through the curtains.

It will be hours yet before she would be called upon, if at all, and perhaps this once, she wants to enjoy the time she has with no responsibilities. For the moment.

“There was something I wanted to ask you.”

Alright, scratch that. Serana sounds rather serious. Eres lifts her head again, propping herself up on her arms. Serana looks up at her, a strangely pensive look upon her face.

“What is it?”

“When did you know?” Serana asks her.

“When did I know…? What, exactly?”

“When did you know you had feelings for me?” Serana holds her gaze intently. It does not seem like a question she had asked without thought, but rather, one she had considered for a long time.

“Hm…” Eres looks away from her, if only to turn her mind inward. “When…?”

Eres thinks back. She knows it had been before they fought Harkon. There had been a moment, back on the wall at Fort Dawnguard, that Eres had thought Serana might kiss her. There had been a moment where Eres had considered doing it herself.

But, there had still been so much about her that Serana had not known. Her connection with Molag Bal, for one. It would not have been right for them to kiss then, when so much had been hidden away.

But when had she fallen for Serana, exactly? When had her fondness for Serana turned from that of a friend and partner to something more than that? Had it been as far back as the Soul Cairn?

Eres thinks of that moment, of the moment just before her soul had been trapped. Of the moment where she had gone against all semblance of reason, just to accompany a millennia-old vampire into a realm of Oblivion so that she wouldn’t have to confront her mother alone.

 _Logic_ would have dictated that she stayed behind. It would have been smarter. Safer. More reasonable. But Eres had not been able to imagine Serana going inside alone.

Perhaps then, Eres thinks, is when she had thought there was something more to it. Perhaps it had been then that Eres realized her dedication to Serana went much deeper than just that of friends, or a partnership. She doesn’t quite know if she can call it love, then—love had not really been on her mind at the time.

It had just been, _this is Serana, and I_ _’m not letting her go alone._ That had been all there was to it. Eres had not thought, in the moment, of what her decision _meant_ , in the long run.

But after that, when they’d tracked down both scrolls and went to hunt for the Ancestor Glade, Eres thinks - maybe _that_ was when she had known it, truly. Not that it was the first time she _felt it_ , but the first time she had understood it for what it was.

That the reason she had flirted with Serana then had not been for the sake of her own entertainment, but simply because she had _wanted to_. And everything that had happened after that…

The Forgotten Vale, the battle against Vyrthur, confronting Harkon at last with the rest of the Dawnguard… Every moment spent with Serana had only solidified the way she’d felt for her. It had only grown deeper, stronger…

By the time she had been trapped by Molag Bal in that mansion, she was completely lost in it. She’d given her life for Serana then, in a way. And she would do it again if she had to.

Walking into a hellscape, facing down a God—somehow it had all seemed almost reasonable, at the time. If it meant keeping Serana safe, there had been nothing she wouldn’t have done.

“Nirn to Eres,” Serana’s voice cuts into her thoughts, a tap of a finger against her cheek.

Eres looks back at her. “I was thinking.”

“That hard for you?”

Eres smirks at her, answers her with a pointed kiss - she will not be baited just now, thank you. Nice try. “Very funny.”

“It’s harder than it seems, isn’t it?” Serana asks her, as if she would know. She must have been thinking about this recently, Eres assumes.

“Not really.” Eres says, with a shrug. “I think it was around the time we went to get your mother.”

Serana blinks at her. “My mother? You mean—”

“The Soul Cairn,” Eres confirms. Is she a bit evil, for feeling a little amused at how surprised Serana looks, now? “I think that’s when it first occurred to me. As far as when I was sure of it… Maybe the Glade.”

Serana stares at her. “That long?”

“That long.” Eres smiles down at her, amused. “Did you think I would have let you trap my soul otherwise? I think that should have probably made it obvious.”

Now that she thinks of it, honestly, she’s not sure why _that_ hadn’t been the moment she’d come to accept it. Why _else_ would she have trusted Serana with such a thing, if she hadn’t already loved her at that point?

“But the Glade is probably a better point. That’s when I knew I wanted more.”

“Huh.” Serana looks past her head, somewhere up at the ceiling. “I would have never guessed.”

“I’m assuming you thought it was a long time after that.”

“I’m… not sure, actually.” Serana admits haltingly. “For me, I mean. I don’t know. I thought… Alftand for me, maybe. But I can’t say for sure. I don’t know. I never really thought about it back then. I was just… curious,” she admits. “To which of us fell first.”

“Didn’t realize it was a competition,” Eres says jokingly. She pokes at Serana’s side until the woman looks at her. “I’m winning, if you haven’t noticed.”

Serana scowls playfully back at her. “I kissed you first.”

“Only after I said something,” Eres replies. It had been because of _her_ that Serana had made a move. She had essentially backed her into a corner until she had to. “So that was still me.”

Serana’s eyes narrow at her. “Give me _some_ credit.”

Eres remembers, suddenly, just what Serana had been first to do.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Serana huffs. “I know what you’re thinking about.”

Eres only smirks back at her. “You did say you wanted credit.”

“Hush.” Serana says to her, and kisses her just so that she will. If this is how Serana plans to keep her quiet, she will have to be annoying more often.

Sometimes, when Serana kisses her, there is a certain kind of brightness in her eyes when they part. A certain kind of wanting, a certain kind of heat in them, a heat that enters her, that fills her from the inside out.

Sometimes, when Serana kisses her, Eres feels it in herself, that same wanting, that same desire, the very thing she sees reflected in Serana’s own eyes—a wanting for _more._

Eres has been able to tell when Serana is hungry for a long time now, for months before they had ever become something more than friends.

She doesn’t know how, before Serana had told her about the connection between intimacy and her appetite, that she had somehow never noticed how very often Serana seemed to hunger for _her_ , specifically.

Eres wonders, sometimes, what that says about her. What does it say about her, that the thought of Serana wanting her only makes her want it more? That what had once merely been a passing curiosity of how it felt to be fed upon had instead turned to an … unusual desire of her own? That sometimes, Eres has contemplated offering herself more than once since that conversation, if only so that she can _know_ what it is that Serana wants of her.

So that she can feel it, too.

Eres knows, knows that she is getting carried away, that she is getting too wrapped up in her own feelings, that she needs to pull back before she loses herself in the moment. She tries to sit up, to pull away from her, and Serana merely follows.

“I’m trying to be okay,” Serana murmurs to her, “with the things that I want.”

Serana kisses her like there is a promise behind it. Serana kisses her like she needs her, like she breathes her.

It is not an urgency in that kiss, but a feeling as though time itself is irrelevant between them. There is an electricity in it, a rawness, an opening of hearts and souls and a woman who has laid herself bare.

Serana steals her breath from her lungs, robs her heart of its beat. Eres is taken with her, taken by her, and there is a moment in which she is not sure what time passes between _before_ and _after._

Until a mouth presses against her neck, until there are the sharp points of fangs against her skin, a pinprick of pain, a warning, a little nip of things to come that Eres had not yet dared to think about, had not wanted to, had been afraid to hope for.

Too soon, too soon, too soon—the mantra repeats over and over in the back of her mind, like an alarm blaring in the distance where she can barely hear it over the sound of her own pounding heart.

Eres pulls away from her, because she must. She drags herself away, something that feels like ripping herself apart, but she cannot, will not—not now.

Too soon, _too soon,_ she tells herself. She tries to focus her thoughts beyond the heat against her skin and between her legs.

“Serana—” the sound of it, the breathlessness in her own voice, brings heat rising to her cheeks.

She had _not_ meant to sound so—so needy, almost, but Serana’s touch is distracting, the fire that races beneath her skin wherever her mouth touches her is maddening.

“I want _you_ ,” Serana says to her, whispers to her, a hiss of a breath in her ear that makes her shiver.

There are many things that Eres can say she wants. This, wherever _this_ leads with Serana—she is not sure that there is anything she has ever wanted more.

In this moment, it feels less like a want and more of a need, like something she _must_ have, or she’ll lose herself to it, like something she has waited long enough for and can no longer do without. But Serana…

Is _Serana_ ready for this? To take this step, now? So soon? Or was it merely a hunger, a desperation borne of something else entirely that she could not help? That she would regret, later, when sense had returned to her?

Eres buries a hand into Serana’s hair. Her body wants to pull her closer, to hold her against her, to ask - _more_ \- without saying it aloud.

Her mind knows better, knows they shouldn’t, knows there is a limit, a boundary they are approaching and _fast_ —and yet even her mind does not want to fight against it.

Everything in her wants to say yes. Wants to allow it. Wants to encourage it. To push her further, to ask her, _How do you want me?_ Rather than _Are you **sure**? _

Eres shakes her head, shakes the thoughts from it, the want from it, clears her throat so that her voice will not break upon the desire in her.

She pushes, a gentle hand at Serana’s chest until she pulls away from her, until Serana looks her in the eyes and—

And if Eres is honest, it almost hurts more than it helps. It almost makes it _harder_ to say this, looking at her now, than when she had not seen the heat in her gaze.

There is no mistaking the way that Serana looks at her, like she is an inch away from pulling them both down into the bed and - it takes Eres an embarrassingly long moment to even remember why she had stopped her.

“Not now,” she manages, keeping her breaths carefully even. Or as much as she can when Serana is still gripping her at the hips, still looking at her like _that_. “You need to hunt,” she tells her, as gently as she is able. “I’ll make you some potions later.”

Serana’s lips pull into a frown, dark brows creasing. “They don’t help,” she says, and though there is a hint of frustration in her eyes, it is still far outweighed by the desire in them. “They just make me want you more.”

“Oh,” Eres speaks the word into Serana’s mouth, because she is kissing her again, and it takes several minutes for her to pull away again. “You should speak to your mother.”

“Don’t bring my mother up right now,” Serana mutters, looking cross.

“Apparently, I need to.” Eres hates to deny her—more than Serana could ever know, probably, but—if Serana is not going to have sense, then she has to.

She feels a draft against her collarbone, and, looking down, she huffs, pulling her shirt back to proper order. When had Serana even unbuttoned it so far down?

It was a wonder Eres was still dressed at all, if Serana could be so sneaky about it—or, more likely, Eres just hadn’t been of the mind to care. “I don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret.”

“I’m not going to regret it, Eres.” If Eres only had to go on what Serana _said_ to know what she means, she may not have questioned it. Serana sounds _sure_ of herself, more than Eres had expected her to.

But Eres knows—the last time they had come this close, Serana hadn’t even been _remotely_ ready, and her eyes then hadn’t been near as bright with hunger. That, on top of the fact that Eres had _just_ had what could have been a near-death experience…

She can guess what might be running through Serana’s mind. And she doesn’t want _that_ to be the reason Serana takes the next step with her. She wants her to want it, to be ready for it for _her_ , not because she thinks that she’ll run out of time.

“We have time.” Eres tells her.

She pulls herself from Serana’s lap, pulls herself from the bed entirely - if she stays there, it’s even more likely that Eres herself will lose the fight with her own restraint.

“We don’t have to rush things. And you said before how dangerous it would be if you fed off me now.”

Serana’s brows furrow, eyes flashing, and for a moment it looks like she’s going to argue.

“Just—see if your mother has any other ideas about it. Besides the extractor. Then we can talk about it.”

Serana looks away from her. Sighs. Eres hates to see her irritation, to see her frustration and know that she is the cause of it.

“Fine,” Serana says finally, running a hand through her hair. “I’ll talk to her. But Eres, I—where are you going?”

Eres pauses by the washroom door, half inside it already.

“I need a cold bath,” she tries for a joke, for something to ease the tension but—but Serana looks at her, and there is a moment where her knees feel weak, where she is not sure that she could bring herself to refuse it if Serana insisted on joining her.

“Alone,” she adds, a beat later. She grips the doorframe, grounding herself in place, forcing herself to remain where she stands and not give ground to this.

It’s for the best, she tells herself. It’s too soon. It’s too soon, and somehow, it does not feel soon enough.

Serana takes a breath. The heat in her eyes recedes to a simmering beneath the surface, to embers rather than a raging blaze.

“Alright,” she says slowly. “But I want to talk about this, Eres. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

For a moment, that heat rises in her, steals the breath from Eres’ lungs from across a room.

“And I know you don’t want to, either.”

Her hand tightens around the door frame, clutching where Serana cannot see it, cannot see the white-knuckled grip that keeps her in place, that keeps her from crossing that room, from throwing herself right back into bed with her, into her arms, that keeps her from throwing caution to the wind and just saying _fuck it, maybe now_.

She wants to. Gods, but there is a part of her that wants to.

Eres swallows. She looks away from her. It is easier to speak when she doesn’t have to meet Serana’s eyes, when she’s looking at her like that.

“Alright,” she says. “We can talk about it later.”

Later, she hopes, later when Serana has hunted and she is in her right mind again, when she is not letting her instincts drive her desires.

When she will _know_ what she wants, without regrets.

When Eres will not have to worry that whatever she says is not fueled with a combination of desperation and instinct.

She turns, then, closing the washroom door behind her. It is the first time she has ever felt the need to lock it.

Not because she fears that Serana will come in - but rather, because she fears that otherwise, she may pull Serana in herself.

* * *

When Eres exits the washroom and does not find Serana in her chambers, she is not altogether surprised.

She had even hoped that Serana would take her advice - to hunt, and perhaps even to speak to her mother about the failure of the blood potions to help control her urges.

Even still, looking upon the bed - made, now, likely by Serana herself - only reminds Eres of what had very nearly happened between them just an hour beforehand.

The sun, freshly risen, streams in through the curtains from the far window, and for a moment, Eres is struck with a vision of what _might_ have been.

What might have happened.

Had she not stopped it when she had, would they still be in that bed now? Would she be in Serana’s arms, now, freshly sated and _not_ frustrated beyond belief?

The thought of it feels too idyllic, too paradisaic to be a reality.

Her, and Serana, wrapped in each other, languid and careless for the world waking around them…

The sunlight might have bathed Serana’s skin in a warm glow, despite her complaints of its brightness.

Perhaps Eres would have stayed with her there, would have refused to leave the bed for any reason that was not immediate and unforeseen danger.

Eres thinks, if that had happened, that she might have wanted to spend the entire day in Serana’s arms, that she would not have ever wanted that moment between them to end. It would have been her own slice of Sovngarde, her own slice of paradise here on Nirn—and perhaps, then, it is good that they had not.

Perhaps, then, it is good that Eres had stopped it before it truly began.

Even so, there is a sinking inside her, a lingering disappointment as she sits at the edge of the bed to lace up her boots.

How differently might her morning had gone, had she allowed it? How differently would she be feeling now, if she had given into it? Would she have regretted it, later? Would _Serana_?

Eres is almost certain that Serana would have. It has not been so long since their last encounter at Skyhaven, their last _almost_ —and Serana had been near inconsolable after, at war with her own desires.

It has not been long at all, since then, and Eres knows that Serana could not have shifted gears so suddenly, so soon after.

Eres knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the insistence, the readiness she had seen earlier in her, was not because Serana was _ready_ , in any manner.

She had a feeling, deep down, that that readiness was not something of want, or desire, but—perhaps, in a manner, it was something closer to fear.

Perhaps, in a manner, Serana was afraid that she would not have the chance to have that with her, if they waited for much longer.

It is not the first time that Serana has showed her concern for Eres’ eventual mortality. That this would happen so soon after Eres had, again, been indisposed, is not a coincidence. That, Eres is sure of.

That is what Eres must remind herself of. She must remind herself that, even in the case that Serana truly _had_ been ready - it is better that Eres had chosen to err on the safe side.

It is better that she is _sure_ that Serana is ready, because the last thing she wants is for something to happen between them that Serana later regrets.

Molag Bal had been right about one thing: the easiest way to break _her_ was to hurt Serana.

If Eres had gone ahead with her own selfish desires, if she had let it happen and hurt Serana in the process, even unintentionally—she is not sure she would have been able to live with herself, after that. She is not sure she would be able to forgive herself for that, even if Serana would.

It is better this way, Eres tells herself. It is better that they take their time, that they are well prepared - that Serana is not pushing herself to do something she is not ready for, simply because she fears she will not have the chance in the future. As much as it pains her.

Eres finishes her last boot. She looks over her shoulder, at the sunlight dappled across the pillow on her bed.

She can almost imagine Serana’s playful grimace, there, as the sunlight filtered in as the sun rose in the hills beyond.

She can see herself there, too, enjoying the warmth the sun brings to Serana’s skin, enjoying the life it breathed into her.

Eres would not have left that bed, she is sure. She drags both hands down her face, wishing she could wrest the thoughts from her mind and fling them out that very window, throw them away so they wouldn’t distract her so.

She wishes she could stop thinking about it. She wishes she could stop _missing her_ , when they had just been together no longer than an hour ago.

Had she always been this wrapped up in her? Had she always been this preoccupied with her?

Or was it just that morning that made her incapable of thinking of anything else?

Eres shakes her head, groaning to herself, and lifts herself up from the bed. She is still tired, physically. She knows, were it up to her mother, that she might spend the entire day in bed, recovering.

But if Eres has to spend another minute in this bedroom without Serana here, she might drive herself insane. Hell, it would probably be worse if Serana _was_ there.

Speaking of her mother…

Eres decides. She is going to get _some_ work done, no matter what anyone says.

Even if she can’t go to Whiterun herself, surely there are other things she can do to keep herself busy. To keep her mind busy. To—to do anything but sit there and daydream about the _almost_ of that morning.

She can be productive. She can make herself useful. She can do that.

Eres, very carefully, does not look at her bed again as she leaves.

* * *

Eres does not knock when she enters the room. She has no reason to. It’s her keep, she goes where she pleases.

“Auria.” Auria, sitting on the edge of the bed, does not respond. Eres frowns. She repeats her name. She still gets no response.

“Oh, for gods’ sake.” Eres scowls at her. Fine—if she wants to be immature. “Mother.” Nothing. Not even so much as a twitch. “Really?”

As if to goad her further, Auria starts to hum a tune under her breath.

Eres is going to kill her one day. She might have, if she did not need a favor from her just then.

“ _Maman._ _”_

Auria looks up, an all-too-pleasant smile on her lips. Eres meets her smile with a glare. “Yes, _mikros_?”

“First of all, you’re an asshole.”

“Language.”

“I’m _twenty-four_ ,” Eres huffs, growing more irritated by the second. “Never mind that. I need your help with something.”

Auria raises a delicate brow at her. “You call me an asshole, and now ask for my help?”

“Just listen before you say no. I need you to—”

The washroom door opens, then, and Eres freezes mid-speech, stunned beyond words. Mirabelle looks back at her, nonplussed.

Mirabelle, who is - who is wearing not her finely embroidered mage robes, but nightclothes.

Mirabelle, whose hair is not as finely coiffed as it always is.

Mirabelle, who is in her mother’s room _far_ too early in the morning for it to be anything else than what it looks like.

It feels like several minutes before Eres remembers to so much as blink.

“I—” She does not know how to respond to this. She is not going to examine this, no, not at all.

She is not going there today, or any day soon. This is not what she came here for.

“Mirabelle,” she greets quickly, and the next words tumble out of her at such a rate that she is not even sure if anyone but herself understands them.

“I am not going to ask why you’re here and I don’t want to know so _please_ don’t tell me anything but I do need your help with something else.”

 _“Mikros_ ,” Auria starts patiently, but Eres holds up a hand.

“No! Do not. I don’t want to know. Not important. Not my business. Not anything I ever want to think about ever in my life. Auria—”

Auria raises a pointed brow, eyes flashing.

“ _Maman_ ,” Eres corrects, restraining herself from rolling her eyes. “I need you to speak with Serana.”

For some reason, Mirabelle and Auria exchange glances. “Does this have something to do with—”

Eres knows what she’s going to say before she says it, so she stops her short. She will _not_ be talking to her mother about feeding, thank you very much. 

“No,” she says. “I need you to tell her what you told me. About being too hard on myself.” However much she does not want her mother involved in _anything_ regarding her sex life, there is one thing she has been sure of since Skyhaven: Serana needs to realize that her emotions are nothing to be ashamed of, that there is nothing wrong with her for feeling them.

Maybe if Serana was not as hard on herself as she was, Eres' morning would have gone differently. She would not have had to worry that Serana would hate herself for allowing herself to want what would only be natural between them. Perhaps her mother can make herself useful - in this, at least, if nothing else. Perhaps Serana will listen to _her_ , a veritable stranger, if not to Eres herself. 

“Oh?” Eres kind of hates the smug look on Auria’s face. “Are you saying your mother knows what she’s talking about?”

“I might, if you stop looking at me like that.” She won’t, but that’s not the point. Auria is already incorrigible enough as it is.

“Just do it, please. I think she needs to hear it from someone other than me." Eres, after all, is not an unbiased party. Perhaps hearing it from Auria, of all people, would make Serana realize that it was the truth, and not just an empty platitude. "And _her_ mom certainly isn’t going to be the one to say it.”

Primly, Auria tosses her hair over one shoulder. She looks far too fucking pleased with herself for Eres’ liking, and Eres _knows_ she’s doing it on purpose.

“Of course, _mikros_ ,” Auria coos. “I can do this for your sake.”

“Wonderful.” She’s never going to hear the end of this, she just knows it.

At last, she looks at Mirabelle - and very painfully forces herself not to focus too hard on just how very - _comfortable_ she looks, with Auria.

“As for you,” Mirabelle looks at her expectantly, “would you be able to teleport someone to a place you’ve never been?”

At that, Mirabelle’s eyebrows raise. “And to what end would I be doing this, in this hypothetical of yours?”

“I need to contact a man named Gelebor. Last time I met him, he was in the Forgotten Vale. Somewhere… to the West I think? Northwest, maybe.”

It’s hard to tell exactly where on the map the Forgotten Vale had been, but she could at least remember where the cave was.

“It’s too far out of the way for me to go now, with everything else going on, but I need to get a message to him.”

“Well, a message can certainly be managed, if you can describe him well enough to me.” Mirabelle says. She sits upon the bed next to Auria.

Eres tries not to grimace. There’s just something— _wrong_ about the idea of her mother having… relations. And knowing about it.

“However, teleportation—while technically possible, it would be incredibly unwise for anyone to do such a thing when they are not at least passably familiar with their destination. There is a reason we use teleportation circles, and it is not for decoration.”

Beside her, Auria shudders. When Eres looks at her, Auria shakes her head mutely.

“Without a Circle,” Mirabelle explains, “the teleportation becomes much less precise. This effect is more pronounced as the distance grows larger. The College has a working map of much of Skyrim for such things, should the need arise, which allows us to compensate for the margin of error without the requirement of a receiver on the other side. However, without this Forgotten Vale being a known location… Even if we did manage to narrow down its location, our calculations would be mere estimates - and the less precise one is about such a thing…”

Mirabelle shrugs helplessly. “There are plenty of cautionary tales of young mages who found themselves teleporting their bodies into solid structures. Underground. Hundreds of meters in the air. Any manner of things can go wrong without an apparatus to focus the spell on the other side, whether that is a receiving circle placed in advance, or that of the Arcaneum’s resources for cold transferance.”

Eres makes a face, and Mirabelle adds, “A cold or blind transferance is one which is not directed by any outside influence, but merely the mage’s working knowledge of the area. The opposite of which would be a warm transference, in which there is a receiver.”

Alright. Eres had known it to be complicated, but she might have been alright to never have that image in her head—she’d like to keep all of her limbs firmly attached, thank you very much.

“Message it is, then.” Mirabelle cocks her head, listening intently. “Gelebor is a Snow Elf - one of the last, I imagine.”

Eres pulls her bag from her back and removes her map to set upon the bed between the two of them, so that she can point out the location of the cave she had first met him in.

“He was the man we met when we were searching for Auriel’s Bow. He was the one maintaining the Wayshrines.”

“And the message you wish to send?” Mirabelle asks. “I will also need a detailed description of him, if you are able. If he has magic of his own, it should make finding him easier.”

“He does.” Eres is sure of that. They’d seen it for their own eyes. “I need you to ask him if there’s a way he could recreate those Wayshrines here, in Skryim, for travel between holds and particular locations - or if he knows of a way that we could adapt the magic in them for our own version of it, if the wayshrines themselves are too sacred to share.”

When Mirabelle’s expression shifts, interest clearly piqued, Eres explains, “These wayshrines were able to facilitate long distance travel near instantaneously through some kind of magical web of sorts, I think - set up between them that connects them. As long as you could reach a wayshrine, you coul travel from that one to any other that had been previously connected to the same web in seconds, just from walking through a portal. No rituals, no spell casting - it didn’t even use magicka.”

Mirabelle’s brows raise higher yet, and she looks to Auria. “Have _you_ ever heard of such magic?”

Auria hums in consideration. “Among the Ancients, perhaps. But nothing functional in this day and age. Our People travel through the trees, so there is little need for such things, now. Valenwood is much smaller than Skyrim, after all.” To Eres, she asks, “You say it didn’t use any magicka at all?”

“Not that I could tell. I couldn’t even figure out what was powering it. There wasn’t any hint of soul gems anywhere within its construction.”

“Fascinating,” Auria breathes, and she looks almost more interested in it than Mirabelle is. “Imagine what such a thing could do here in Skyrim. Or anywhere, even.”

“Exactly.” Eres smiles, “If we had something like that, it wouldn’t take people days or weeks to travel between places no matter how far away they were. It could make—well, _all_ of Tamriel more accessible, depending on how many of these wayshrines can be connected at once, and how far they can be apart without losing connection to the others. I don’t know enough about them. He did say I could call on him if I needed help in the future, but with the fight with Harkon… I never thought to ask him at the time.”

“This could be groundbreaking,” Mirabelle says carefully. “But if he is truly a Snow Elf as you say, he may not wish to share it with us.”

“He wanted to help the Falmer,” Eres tells her. “He was looking for some way to restore them back to what they were before, before they—mutated. I’m not sure if that’s possible, but, if you offered the College’s resources to help with that, he may be more willing to share the wayshrines with us, or at least teach us how to make them ourselves.”

“Hmm,” Mirabelle nods slowly. “I will need to speak with the Arch-Mage, to be certain. But I don’t see why he would not allow this, considering what we may gain in return. Allow me to speak with Savos,” she tells Eres. “Should he give the go-ahead, then we will see about getting a message to your Gelebor.”

Unexpectedly, Auria leaps up from the bed and sweeps Eres into a tight embrace.

“My child,” she says proudly, and Eres gets the sense she is not talking to her, but Mirabelle. “My child is _brilliant_ , Mira. Did I not tell you she would be?”

Mirabelle, surprising Eres more than she will ever admit, smiles. “She is certainly that.”

* * *

By the time that it is just a few hours past midday, Eres is already exhausted. She hates how quickly she feels drained from simple, normal day activity, but she also refuses to retire to her bedroom for the day.

She will avoid that until she has no choice, she thinks, and perhaps Serana is of the same mind, given that she has not seen her since the morning, either.

Eres takes her lunch in her study, a place she has not spent time in since… Since what feels like years ago. She knows it was not - it had perhaps only been a few months since she had her confrontation with Jarl Siddgeir’s man in this room.

Yet somehow, the more chaotic her life becomes, the more her sense of time seems to warp - could it _really_ have been just a few months ago, with how much had happened since then?

If she turns her seat away from her desk, she can just see outside through the floor-length windows. She can just see the work of those out in the bailey as they travel to and from, as they carry supplies and materials to village homes that still need repairing.

Much of the rubble within the bailey itself has been cleared already - all that remains now is a collection of quarried stone and other such materials which, sometime in the future, she imagines shall be used to rebuild the walls around the Keep.

The walls she should have built ages ago. Perhaps if she had, the walls would not have fallen as they had. But even she must admit to herself that the walls - wood or stone - would not have helped much against the likes of a dragon.

The village surrounding the Keep would still have burned regardless. The only thing that would have helped them would have been if she had not shirked her duty as she had.

Eres sighs, turning back to her desk. She does not want to think of the efforts to rebuild. It just reminds her of how much was lost. Of how much had been destroyed due to her failures.

Perhaps Serana had been mocking her, when she had said that she would allow Eres to write a _fancy little letter_ for the Jarl - but Eres does mean to do just that.

If she cannot go with Delphine and Esbern herself, then she will find other ways to direct the course of their next steps in facing Alduin. Whether the others like it or not.

A knock sounds at the study door, then, at the very moment the tip of her quill touches the ink. Eres looks at the door - and its distance from her seat - and decides that she will not be getting up, for anyone.

“Who goes?” She asks, raising her voice to be heard.

A pause. Her brow furrows. Had it just been one of the village children, playing around?

Then, “It’s Yosef,” comes a muffled male voice.

Eres sets the quill down. She feels that tightness in her chest all over again. She does not want to face Yosef now. She’s already had an emotional enough morning. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?

“May I come in?” Yosef asks, hesitantly. “There’s also a couple people who wanted to see you, if you’ve got a moment.”

Eres runs a hand down her face, pinching at the bridge of her nose. She should not be surprised. Whenever she comes to Fellburg, there is always an inordinate amount of work to catch up on.

That it would be any different now, after so much had happened, after Fellburg had nearly been destroyed for her carelessness—she supposes she should consider herself lucky she’s not had a mob at the front gates.

“Come in.”

The door opens, and Yosef enters, sliding through the gap in the door and pushing it closed behind him as if he means to hide from someone. From her? Possibly - or perhaps there are those waiting, on the other side of the door.

For a moment, Yosef stands there at the door, looking at her. He has grown a bit of scruff since she’d seen him last.

It makes him look older, somehow, more tired—or perhaps that is merely the look in his eyes, when he looks at her. He straightens his tunic, brushing invisible dirt from his front.

She watches him, and she does not know what he wants her to say.

“Did you need something, Yosef?” She asks him, as levelly as she can manage. She keeps her tone carefully polite, business-like—she can at least be civil, even if he hates her, deep down. Even if he has decided to forgive her simply because she is ill.

“Uh…” Yosef ducks his head, sighing. “Alright,” he says finally, and at last he approaches her. “I meant to catch you before you left, last time,” he starts with, and Eres sighs.

“If this is about the dragon, I’m working on it.” She turns away from him. “I’m afraid it may take more than a couple months to avert the apocalypse. I’m doing what I can—”

“No, I know that,” Yosef interrupts her. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not blaming you.”

She does look at him, then, and he looks down at her with remorse painted on his features. She only barely manages to keep herself from grimacing at the sight. She does not deserve it.

“What happened to me has nothing to do with Alduin.” That’s a lie. She knows it’s a lie. But technically - it had more to do with the Time Wound than Alduin himself.

If Yosef feels guilty because he thinks he’s the reason she’d fallen to illness again, then - she will make sure he knows.

Yosef’s expression twists. “I—that’s not why I’m here, Eres. I only meant—”

“If you’ve decided to clear your conscience because you think I am at death’s door, allow me to assure you: I am not, and will not be for some time, providence willing.” Eres tells him, her mood darkening further.

Did he mean just to clear the air, so that he felt better about things? She doesn’t want his false platitudes. She’d rather him be upfront with how he felt instead of lying to her face about it.

“You don’t need to strain yourself trying to make amends.”

Yosef’s eyes flash, then, his face morphing into a scowl. There, Eres thinks - that is what she had been looking for.

“Would you _listen_ to me instead of assuming the worst all the time?” Yosef snaps at her, eyes hard. “I didn’t come here because I feel sorry for you. I came because I was an asshole, and I wanted to apologize. I didn’t get the chance to before because you left when you knew Johanna and I would be asleep. You left in the middle of the night and with nothing but a note saying you’d handle things, that you’d make up for it.”

“What happened here,” Yosef starts, and sighs. His expression clears, the anger melting from his features, and suddenly he looks at her with something far too close to pity. “I wanted to blame you, because it was easier. It—It was easier for me, to have someone I could be angry at. To have anyone I could actually yell at, for what happened. I can’t yell at a dragon.”

“I took it out on you,” Yosef continues. “And that was unfair of me. I made you feel like you weren’t welcome in your own home, and after all you’ve done for me and Johanna…” He shakes his head.

“I was a right ass towards you because I was scared. And then you left, and I couldn’t make it up to you, and I had to… I had to think about how much you were doing for all of us, even when you might think I’m angry with you. Even when I was ungrateful and bitter and made you feel like it was all your fault - you still went out there and you’ve been trying to help us, anyways. Because that’s what you do.”

“You help people,” Yosef says quietly. “Whether they deserve it or not.”

“Yosef—”

“I mean it,” Yosef says. “You’d have had every right to kick me and Johanna out and tell us to fend for ourselves. You still have that right now. This is your home, not ours. You’re doing us a favor, letting us stay here, and I forgot that—”

“ _Yosef_ ,” Eres cuts in, glaring at him. He quiets, mouth pressing into a tight line. “This isn’t _just_ my home. It hasn’t been for a long time. It may be in my name, but you and Johanna bring more to it than I do, most of the time. I would hope you know that I wouldn’t lord that over you, no matter what disagreements we may have. This is your home as much as it is mine.”

Yosef’s expression twists, for a moment, shifting through a myriad of emotions until finally it settles on something almost rueful.

“There you go again,” he says wryly. “Worried about us first, instead of yourself. That’s just the kind of person you are. I was just—I was so afraid after what happened. I’d almost lost my boy. I thought…” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter what I thought, really. Point is, I should’ve remembered who _you_ are. I shouldn’t have let myself go off on you when I know how you’d… let it weigh you down.”

That is what she had assumed - he felt guilty because she had fallen ill.

“It’s not your fault I’m ill, Yosef. That would have happened eventually regardless. It has nothing to do with what happened.”

“I’m not—” Yosef drags a hand down his face. “By Mara, you’re _impossible_ , do ya know that? I’m not sayin’ sorry just because I think you’re sick. You were sick before that. You just don’t know how to take time off to save your life. Literally.”

She scowls at him. “I don’t have _time_ to take a vacation.”

“I know,” Yosef says, and it does sound like he understands, no matter how much he looks like he might pity her. “The point is I ain’t apologizing because of—whatever it is you think I’m doing here. I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it because you deserve it. Whether or not you want to forgive me for it,” he shrugs. “That’s on you. I’d understand if you didn’t. Johanna’s certainly made it real clear I ain’t owed nothing from you,” he adds, with a bit of a wry smile.

“Women,” he shakes his head good-naturedly. “Y’all stick together. She was real upset with me too, for what I said. But I got some sense knocked into me and I know better now. Shoulda known better before, o’course, but,” he shrugs.

“Sometimes a lesson don’t stick the first time. Gotta keep driving it home. Whatever happens, Eres - we’ve got you. Whether you want us there or not. We’ll be around, if you want it. You ain’t gotta carry it all by yourself, you know.”

Except that she does, but - she will at least accept his apology for what it is. The tightness in her chest is not quite gone yet. It may take some time before it will be, before she can look at Yosef without seeing him yelling at her in the wake of Fellburg’s destruction, but - perhaps, one day, she will be able to forget that. To forget that, for months now, she had lived with the knowledge that Yosef hated her, and so likely, too, did Johanna.

That none of that had been true… It will take some time for her to accept that as truth. It will take some time for her to redirect that guilt somewhere else.

“Alright,” she says at last. She holds out her hand. “Apology accepted, Yosef.” Except, she had said things, too. She had been just as much of an asshole in return, even if she had felt it warranted at the time. “I also apologize, for what I said to you.”

He waves it away dismissively. “Deserved,” he says simply. “You don’t poke a bear and then get mad when it swipes at you.” She stares at him. “You’re the bear, for the record.”

“Yes, I gathered.” _Bear_? Her? “I’m not a bear.”

“You have a temper,” Yosef replies easily. “Don’t even try to deny it. I oughta consider myself lucky you didn’t rip my balls off.”

“That is… disgusting imagery, thank you.” Yosef just grins at her. “You said there was someone else who wanted to see me?”

“Oh, right,” Yosef nods. “Those two that came with the cat. Delphine and… Esbur?”

“Esbern,” Eres corrects, amused despite herself. Perhaps she does feel a little lighter, now, after all. “Can you fetch them for me? I just sat down.”

Yosef smirks wryly down at her and bows with an exaggerated flourish. “As you wish, my Lady.”

Eres considers throwing her inkwell at him. But then she’d have to get up to get another. She settles for kicking his shin.

“Ow,” he straightens. “Not very ladylike of you.”

“I can aim higher,” she promises, raising her brows.

“But milady, think of the _children_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing happens and it's gay ? lol i suppose it can't be heavy all the time


	19. Nameless

In the end, Eres does spend most of the day in her study, after all. Between meeting with Delphine and Esbern, ensuring they go to the Jarl of Whiterun at once, that they know the stakes… Drafting her fancy little letter for him, just to ensure that Delphine and Esbern are well received at Dragonsreach, poring over the financial reports from Fellburg’s reconstruction - they are hemorrhaging money, and _fast_ \- and answering a rather heated letter from Jarl Siddgeir, who is apparently livid that she had treated his steward so rudely…

It feels like, once Yosef leaves and she puts her head down to work, that by the time she raises her head again to look, the sun is already starting to set, turning the world beyond a smattering of purples and pinkish-reds. She has still not seen head or tail of Serana since that morning, and does not even know if the woman had returned to Fellburg at all, just yet.

Eres decides, then, that she will take dinner with the others, no matter how much it tires her.

She regrets it almost immediately.

“Mirabelle,” she says, catching the woman’s attention. “How is the research on that book going?”

It was meant to be an innocent question, really. Eres _is_ curious about it, even if she does not know how smart of an idea it is to research it at all.

The way Mirabelle and Auria exchange glances, however, passing an unreadable look between them, does not miss her. Eres narrows her eyes at them, suspicious - what was that about?

“As well as can be expected, all things considered.” Mirabelle answers, frustratingly vague. “I have also gotten in touch with Savos. He is not yet committed to allowing our resources for the sake of the Falmer, but I believe I may be able to convince him, given enough time.”

Eres doesn’t too much care about Gelebor and the Falmer just now. She doesn’t like the way that it feels as though they are hiding something from her, like they are talking _around_ something, rather than about it. Even when she thinks back to the first time they had spoken of this, with Serana - Serana had done the very same thing.

“Are you hiding something from me?” Eres asks them, meeting each of their eyes.

“Of course not, _mikros_.” Auria smiles at her, reaches to pat her hand on the table. “We just know you’ve enough on your plate without worrying after Mirabelle and her research as well. You should be focusing on your recovery now, not all of this.”

“Your recovery does come first,” Mirabelle agrees. “My research is a curiosity, to be sure. But it is nothing you should concern yourself with.”

Being told she shouldn’t _concern herself_ with something, to Eres, means that she definitely should do the very opposite.

“It’s time you focus on yourself, before others,” Mirabelle adds.

 _It_ _’s time,_ Eres hears. In Claude’s voice, and then in Isran’s. Her dream - they had said such things to her, then, too. Such … cryptic things, things she could not quite understand…

Something about this moment, suddenly, does not feel quite real.

Eres looks down at her hands. She counts the fingers. The tines on her fork. She looks at Mirabelle and Auria, and Yosef and Johanna, and she tries to remember if anything has changed suddenly since she looked at them last.

Suddenly, the world feels too still. Suddenly, it feels too much like she is in a dream, in a pocket of reality that does not quite exist. One in which she is sheltered from the decisions she must soon make, from the world she must save, from the fighting she must do, soon. It feels too much like she is not quite here, like _they_ are not quite here, with her.

Can she be sure of it? Can she be sure that she’s truly woken up, at all? Can she be sure that this is not simply a dream within a dream, and she simply has not noticed it yet? Is she hallucinating?

Why—why would they be hiding things from her, otherwise? Why would they be acting so strangely, if it were real? Why would Serana have avoided her for an entire day? Serana would not have parted from her for so long, without warning, if this were not a dream meant to - meant to distract her, to pull her away from her duties, to lull her into a false sense of security, of feeling like she has time she does not have.

Is she still in that bed, then? Still wasting away, peacefully asleep? Is there any way that she can actually _know_ if she is awake or not?

“Eresael?” Auria calls for her, voice tinged with concern. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Perhaps you should rest,” Mirabelle says. “It seems you may have taken on too much too soon. You must allow yourself time to recover.”

Time to recover? Or would it simply be time to waste? More time spent in a dream she cannot wake herself from?

Eres presses her hands into her eyes until her vision turns to nothing but a reddish-black curtain, until she feels an ache just behind them. Her chest feels tight, feels compressed, feels like her lungs have forgotten how to expand, even as her heart races in her chest, she can—she can feel herself trembling, and she hates it, she _hates it_ , she’s—she’s not _weak_ , like this.

“Eres—” Mirabelle says, and there is the sound of a chair scraping against stone flooring, but Eres cannot.

She cannot accept the concern of someone who may not be real to begin with.

Eres flees, leaping from the table and walking as briskly as she is able down familiar hallways and up familiar stairs and—and everything is so familiar, everything is so _right_ , but—but this _can_ _’t_ be right, can it? How can she _know_?

Her room. Her room looks too perfect, too neat, too orderly - where are the journals she had left out on the desk? Her lounge had been next to the bookshelf, not the window. This isn’t _right_ , but… Eres has to do something. She has to find some way to prove it, to prove to herself that she is awake. She has to prove to herself that all of this is real, that _she_ is real, or…

Eres tosses a book to the floor. There, that is - she would not have done that, in reality. If it is still there the next time she looks, then that means it is real, does it not? Her dream-room would be as she remembered it _before_ she fell asleep, would it not? Could she not just trash this room, and wait to see if it changed, see if something shifted when it should not?

Eres tosses another book, and another, and another, until she is flinging books from the shelves to the floor, and it is only the sound of them hitting the stone that helps her to breathe, that keeps her from sinking into the panic that threatens to overwhelm her. They are solid, and real, and they make noise, and they do not move from where she throws them, even when she turns away from them for a moment, and this is not a dream, and she is awake, she is _awake,_ if she could only _remember_ what it feels like to be awake again she would be—

“Hey,” the voice hardly registers in her mind. “Hey, _hey!_ ” It comes again, and when she tries to throw the next book to the ground, there is a hand around her wrist, holding it in place, and another hand pulls the book from her fingers and puts it back on the shelf where it belongs and there is something in that that breaks her, that makes her feel like the world itself is working against her, that—

“Shh,” comes the voice, but it is not Serana’s. It is not Serana who pulls her into their arms, who sinks with her to the ground in that room, in the center of all the mess she has made.

“It’s alright, girl,” he says to her, and he holds her against him in a way that feels—that feels so strangely familiar, like she has been here before. Like she has had this memory, this dream, before, like— “Shh,” he says to her, and his voice is gentler than she can ever remember hearing it, before.

She lets herself cry, to him—in front of him, in his arms, into his shoulder—and she does not know why she feels like she can. She does not know why it feels like he himself is a wall, one that she can break behind, one that will guard and protect her and keep her safe from that which may harm her.

She does not know why it feels like she can cling to him, and yet.

“I’m here,” Isran tells her. “We’re all here for you, Eres. You’re not alone in this. Whatever’s going on with you - we’ll figure it all out together, one way or another. You go on, girl,” he murmurs. “Let it out. Stendarr knows it’s been a long time coming.”

She sees something, then, a flash of memory behind her eyes, a flash of something in the back of her mind. Of—of Isran, of being pressed against his dusty armor in the dark of a small underground room. Of his arm around her, then, of a Horn held tightly in her own hands like a lifeline, of the knowledge that she can stay here, now, because this man - this man will keep her safe, until she needs to move again.

Of a knowledge, too, a knowledge that she is not sure how she knows. Of a girl that Isran had lost. Of a family that he had once had. Of knowing that she is not them, and could never be, but—perhaps she is something else that Isran needs, now, and perhaps Isran is something _she_ needs, something—something she has never had, really.

The memory stuns her, pulls at her, rips her right out of her panic-induced haze and launches her directly into the present, into the here and now, into the—into the moment that she had not realized for what it was. Into a relationship that she had not realized what it was.

 _“How much do you remember from Coldharbour?”_ Isran had asked her, then, the first time. He had looked almost disappointed when she had told him she didn’t remember much at all. And she had asked, then, what she had forgotten, and Isran… _“Nothing important.”_

But it had been. It _had been._ It had been important, it had been monumental, it had been _Isran_ , of all people, opening himself to her - and she had forgotten it all.

She had forgotten it all, and he had not reminded her. He had put her first. He had done what her own father had never done. And he had never held it against her. Not once.

Eres pulls away from him. She wipes at her eyes, drying her cheeks, both annoyed with herself and embarrassed - and a little guilty, too, because all this time … all this time, she had not realized what she meant to him. What she is to him.

“Sorry,” she mutters, and she does not know how she will explain it. How can she tell him that she had not known? How could she tell him that it was the last thing she had expected of him, because he was such a stoic man? That would not be much of an apology.

“It’s fine, kid.” Isran pats her back, solidly. It feels a bit like he is trying to reestablish a boundary she had set herself. “You’ve been through a lot. It was bound to catch up to you sometime.”

Isran groans as he pulls himself up from the floor, acting much older than he actually is. He does not look at her expectantly, he does not ask her questions. He does not yell, or get angry, or lecture her.

He merely bends over, picking up one of the books she had thrown. And then another, and another, tucking them into the crook of one arm as he went. Cleaning up her mess. Without complaint.

Without even mentioning it.

“I meant—” Eres swallows. She does not feel quite ready to stand, just yet. She moves to her knees instead, focuses on helping to pick up the books, on anything that will keep her from having to look at him while she says it. “I meant about Coldharbour.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees his hand pause as he reaches for a book.

“What about it?” Isran asks, after a moment. He gives no sign at all that he knows what she means.

“About…” Eres sits back on her heels, holding several books in her lap. She’d not managed to throw _too_ many, before Isran had caught her. But some of them had dents in their hardback covers, now, signs of wear and tear that would not have been there otherwise.

“About forgetting. About the Well,” she remembers, suddenly, that that dark room had been a well. That she had climbed down a ladder, horn in hand, because the man in the armor had been insistent on it.

She remembers a flash of a woman in bright, golden armor. The return of the comforting weight of Dawnbreaker upon her back, back where it belonged. The horn in her hands, Isran’s voice in her ears as he tells her—tells her about his family. About his daughter. The one he’d lost. The one he’d buried.

He’d shared that with her, and she had forgotten.

“I forgot what you’d said, back then,” she says haltingly. “I just remembered…”

“Just now?” She feels Isran’s eyes on her, and when she looks up, he is looking at her, eyes dark with concern. “Have you been remembering other things?”

She feels herself frowning at him, wondering why he had so quickly blown past it, how he had dismissed it so quickly - she had forgotten something so _important_ , and he wanted to talk about something else?

“I haven’t,” she tells him. “I just remembered the Well, just now.” She hasn’t remembered anything else. Now, more than ever, she wonders just how much she could have forgotten.

But Isran breathes, and lets out a sigh that almost sounds relieved.

“Good,” he mutters to himself, and she is not sure she was meant to hear it. “Don’t worry about Coldharbour,” he says to her then. He places his stack of books back within the shelf. Back to order. “I wouldn’t want to remember all of it, myself. Can’t blame you.”

“I should have remembered that, at least.”

Isran shakes his head. He beckons for her to hand him the books she herself had picked up. She does so without thought, without truly considering that he is the one cleaning up after her.

“It was before you even came to yourself in there,” Isran tells her. The last of the books slide into place. “Can’t expect you to remember stuff like that, with the mantling. Don’t be too hard on yourself.” He extends a hand to her, lifting her to standing.

Seeing her hand in his - small and slender where his is large and squarish, rough with calluses…

There is something about him, about his size, about his rough edges, something in the manner in which he holds himself, that makes her feel a bit like a child, in his presence, now.

She had never felt like that around him before. He had just been a colleague - not even a boss, really, though technically he had been that when she was part of the Dawnguard. He had just been an equal.

Now, she is reminded of just how much older than her Isran is. Just how much longer a life he has lived. How much he has seen and experienced and learned that she has not yet. He is older than Auria, even, she thinks, perhaps even older than her own father would have been if he had lived this long.

“I’m… not Niamh,” she says to him, because she does not want him to think that she could ever be.

“No one is,” Isran answers quietly. “But you remind me of her, sometimes,” he admits. “I suppose that’s why.”

“Why what?”

“Why I feel like I need to protect you.” Isran says. “The way I couldn’t protect her. The way,” he adds, voice low, “no one else has bothered to, because they figured you can protect yourself.”

“That’s…not true,” she says, but—there is some truth in it, maybe.

Isran sends her a wry look. “Serana doesn’t count. She’s more protective of you than I am.”

Eres flushes, heat rising to her cheeks. “That’s different.”

“I would sure hope so,” Isran says dryly. “To each his own, but—I would hope she doesn’t look at you the way I do.” He pauses, his lips pressing together. “Then again,” he adds, “she _is_ quite a bit older…”

 _“Isran_ ,” Eres scolds him— _him_ , of all people, for making a very poor joke. She hadn’t thought him capable of it. He chuckles in response.

“Thank you,” she says, after a beat of silence. The books are all back in place. Her floor is clean. Isran yet remains, seeming unwilling to leave just yet - or perhaps he believes she should not be left alone, just now. “For watching out for me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Isran mutters. “Don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

“As the cranky old man?”

“Damn right,” Isran answers, without missing a beat. “Means they leave this cranky old man alone.”

Eres grins at him. “You’re soft on the inside, aren’t you?”

“Not a chance, kid.”

“Hey,” Eres says, just as he seems like he may finally turn to leave, satisfied that she is not falling apart at the seams. He looks at her, brows raised.

“They’re lying to me.” She watches him as she says it. She watches as his expression does not change, even in the slightest. She watches him as he does not react to her, in the way that could only mean that he is controlling it. “Aren’t they?”

“…About?” He asks her.

“…I don’t know,” she admits. “The book? Septimus?” She crosses her arms, shrugs helplessly. “They’re hiding something from me, aren’t they? There’s something they’re—” no, she corrects herself, “ _you_ _’re_ not telling me. Isn’t there?”

There is a long moment in which Isran merely looks at her, and there is a war within his eyes.

“There is,” he tells her quietly. “But know this, Eres. We wouldn’t keep it from you, if we had any other choice. If you can trust anything from me, trust me on this. What they’re hiding from you - what they’re not telling you? It’s for your own safety. It’s for your protection.”

“I don’t _need_ them to protect me from - from whatever it is,” Eres feels anger, rising up in her. Anger, and frustration, and - and she just wants to _know_. “It feels like I’m in the dream again. It feels like none of this is real, and you all are just—just specters put here to teach me something, and when you all don’t just _say_ what you mean, it feels like - it feels like there’s some kind of lesson I’m not learning and I’m going to keep dreaming until I figure it out on my own and—”

She feels the trembling in her hands again, hears it in her own voice.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind, Isran. I don’t know how much of this is just—just my mind, playing tricks on me. I don’t even know if _you_ _’re_ real. I just…” She shakes her head. “I wish you would just be honest with me, so I could stop asking myself if this is real or if it’s just the Eye or something driving me mad or—”

Isran, unexpectedly, reaches for her, pulls her into a tight hug, embracing her fiercely.

“It’s not the Eye, girl,” he murmurs to her, voice hushed and—and thick, with emotion. Emotion she had never expected from him. “It’s not the Eye.”

Eres realizes it, then.

She doesn’t know how she didn’t figure it out before.

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Her voice sounds hollow in her ears. “You know why I’m sick.”

 _Sick_ —as if that is even enough of a word to describe it. You know why I’m _crazy_ , she wants to say, but does not.

“Yes,” he utters to her, and he pulls away just enough to look her in the eyes, to raise his large hands to her cheeks and hold her there so that she looks at him, so that she cannot look away from the concern in his eyes, from the determination and the knowing in them. From the intensity of them.

“We think we know,” he amends. “Or we at least have an idea. But you,” he purses his lips. “You can’t know, Eres. You have to let it go. I know that’s easier said than done. I know it’s - damn it, I know it’s maddening. I know it’d drive _me_ mad, for everybody but me to know something. But right now… Right now it’s all we can do, until we find a way to save you. Until then—”

“Save me?” Eres searches his eyes, looks for some sign that he might be exaggerating, but—but there is nothing in them but remorse, but something like pity, like resignation, like—like he is telling the truth, and very much wishes he was not.

If this is something she needs to be saved from, then - did that mean what she thinks it means? She has to know. She has to ask him. 

“Am I dying?”

“No,” he shakes his head. Drops his hands to her shoulders. “Not if we can help it. But in order to help you, you’ve got to — you’ve got to stop _looking_ , Eres. Stop trying to figure this out. Stop trying to remember it. Just focus on the future - focus on doing what you can do, now, not this. Not what happened in Coldharbour, not what happened in your Dream, none of it. Focus on the here and now, and nothing else.”

Her brow furrows, mind racing. “This has to do with me remembering things?”

Isran’s expression twists. “Something like that… Just - leave well enough alone for now, Eres. You can rely on us, this time. We’ll figure this out. We’ll find another way.”

“Another way?” Eres asks, frowning. “You - you’ve already found a way?”

“Just one,” Isran mutters. “And it’s not an option.”

“What is it?” Eres asks him. “If whatever this is helps then—”

“Eres, it’s better that you don’t—”

“He means removing your memories.”

Eres starts, surprised to hear Serana’s voice at the doorway. She had not even heard the woman’s approach. But the sight of her—the sight of her does not bring with it excitement, or thrill as it might have earlier.

Now, it brings with it trepidation, because—because Serana, too, had been hiding something from her. Is _still_ hiding something from her.

“What?”

“That’s the way they found.” Serana says, eyes hard as she looks at Isran. “Removing your memories. All of them. Everything to do with Coldharbour and Molag Bal.”

“That’s what’s making me like this?” Eres asks, but—that doesn’t quite make sense. It can’t all just be that. “But that would…” she thinks back. She tries to remember just how much of herself is tied up in her contact with Molag Bal.

“…That would be almost two years of my life,” Eres realizes. “You would just—”

“We’re _not_ ,” Isran cuts in, quick. “We’re not doing that. We’re going to find another way. _Serana,_ ” he turns his eyes to her. “You know we have to be careful with this. Don’t say anything else.”

Serana’s mouth presses into a thin line, eyes narrowing. “I know, Isran. I’m the one with the most to lose, here.”

Isran nods. He pats Eres gently on the shoulder. “I’ll head out,” he tells her. “Remember what I said, Eres. Let it go. This once.”

Eres watches him leave, and she is again alone with Serana. Only, just now, she does not feel anything like she had that very morning.

“You’re lying to me, too.”

The look that Serana gives her - like she is fractured beneath the surface, like there is a shattering inside of her that cannot be repaired - like she is _hurting_ , and Eres is the only one who might be able to help her.

“Eres,” Serana takes a breath. “Eres, we have no _choice_. _I_ don’t have a choice.”

Serana approaches her, then, hesitantly. When she reaches for her, when Serana’s soft hands cup her cheeks rather than Isran’s rough, callused ones - Eres does not refuse her. Unlike Isran, Serana’s is a touch she will always lean into. No matter what.

“I can’t lose you, Eres.” Eres feels breathless for the look in her eyes, like Serana would burn the world for her and not think twice of it. “Even if it makes you hate me. Even if it kills me. I can’t lose you.”

“I can protect myself, Serana,” Eres wishes they would just _trust_ her to do that. She isn’t made of glass. She can handle it, whatever it is.

Serana only smiles sadly down at her. “Not from this, love. Not from this.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?” Eres asks her, feeling powerless and helpless and all the things she _hates_. It is bad enough that she is being lied to. It is even worse to know that _everyone_ is lying to her, and that they are doing it for her. That—that this is something that she cannot handle on her own.

She has always been independent. She has always done everything that she can on her own. To suddenly be left with nothing, with nowhere to go, with nothing she can do or say to change things - somehow, that is almost worse than the question of whether or not she is dreaming.

“You let us handle things, for once.” Serana tells her. “You let us take care of you, for once. You let _me_ take care of you, Eres.”

As romantic as that sounds, Eres still does not like it. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“And I don’t expect you to,” Serana remarks, dryly, sounding not the least bit surprised. “I’m sure you’ll find a way to work yourself to the bone, one way or another. Did you send Delphine and Esbern off to Whiterun?”

Safe territory, Eres realizes. This, talking about the Jarl instead of her apparent impending death for some reason or another she is not allowed to know - this is safe territory. Something they can talk about without too much weight behind it. She had not expected that would be the case, when it concerns Alduin as it does.

“They left earlier this morning.” Which reminds her, suddenly. “Where were you all day?”

“Well,” Serana sighs. “Seems the bandits at Helgen finally wizened up to things and cleared the place out. Or,” she shrugs, “it could have been the Imperials, I suppose. They’ve raised a banner up there, now.”

“The Imperials?” Eres’ brows raise. “Are they actually going to garrison it?”

“No clue,” Serana admits. “Far as I could tell, I didn’t see anyone outside. No guards or anything. Could be it’s just an outpost. Or maybe they were all inside at the time. It was still early enough in the morning, and the weather wasn’t all that great.” She shrugs again. “Whatever the case, I had to go a little further out to hunt. It took me a bit longer than I planned on.”

Eres shifts on her feet. That is—reassuring, almost, but. It almost seemed too simple an explanation. “Is this a lie, too?” She asks her, unable to help herself. “Were you doing something else and just can’t tell me?”

Serana blinks. “No,” she tells her. “I really was just hunting, I promise. Although,” she looks briefly uneasy, then. “Mother came with me, this time.”

“Oh,” Eres’ brow furrows. She’s not sure why, but it had somehow never occurred to her that Valerica would have to do the same. She rarely saw Valerica, even in the Keep, so it had simply never been on her mind. “Did you talk to her? About… earlier?”

“I did.”

“…And?” Eres prompts. “Did she have any other ideas?”

“Not really.” Serana shrugs helplessly. “If the blood potions won’t work, there’s not many other avenues we can take. We’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”

“Which is…?”

“I feed,” Serana starts haltingly, “from you. Directly. Just—we have to be careful. We can’t do it when I’m hungry already. And…” she digs into the satchel at her waist, pulling from it a small dagger sheathed in black, polished leather. She touches it only by the sheath, and presents it to her.

Eres stares at it. “…What is it?”

“Silver,” Serana explains. “If worse comes to worst… Then you can use this to stop me, if I can’t stop myself.”

“Serana, I’m not going to _stab you_.”

“Not that.” Serana shakes her head. “Silver - you know it’s worse than fire for us, even pureblooded vampires are weak to it. It feels like—like acid, eating into your skin. A bit like dragonfire, I imagine. And if it breaks the skin, it can poison us. Not enough to kill us, but certainly enough to make us weaker for a time.”

Serana pushes the sheath into her hand, closes Eres’ fist around it.

“You take this, and you keep it on you. And when the time comes, if I do—lose control,” she says quietly, “then all you have to do is use that. Just touch it to the skin, and it will burn me. The pain of it should snap me out of it enough to remember.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Serana says, shrugging helplessly. “It’s all we have. If we ever want to…” she does not finish her sentence, there, but Eres can guess.

“We need to talk about that.” Eres hates that she must bring it up. Hates that she has to bring the mood down further than it already is. It seems like there is no end to things they need to talk about. It seems there is a new problem around every corner. “About this morning—”

“I got carried away, Eres. It’s fine.”

Eres does not believe that. She does not believe that Serana could shrug it off so easily.

“It’s not fine, Serana. We almost…” She swallows. The memory of it makes her cheeks warm, makes _all_ of her warm, suddenly. “We can’t let that happen again. We can’t—we can’t just … I don’t want us to get carried away. I don’t want it to be like that. I don’t want it to be something you’ll regret.”

Serana looks at her, then, and her gaze is so level, so calm, that it catches her off guard. “Who says I would regret it?”

“Serana,” Eres sighs. “Last time something like this happened, you were—I had to prove to you that you weren’t a monster just for wanting me. I know that you still have… issues, with it,” she says, for lack of a better term. “I’m not going to be upset that we have to wait. I’d _rather_ wait than go too quickly and have you regret it later.”

“That was last time.” Serana says plainly. Serana fixes her with her gaze, holds her until it feels as though she cannot move. “That was before.”

“Before I got sick again, I know.” Eres says. “We don’t have to rush, Serana. I’m not going to die. We have time. We have time to take our time with it. Don’t push yourself because you think—”

“That’s only part of it,” Serana interrupts her. She still sounds—sounds so completely at ease with herself that Eres is not sure what to think. Is it an act? Has Serana really come to terms with it so quickly?

“I _am_ afraid for you, Eres,” Serana admits to her. “I’m afraid that I’ll lose you, and that I’ll regret wasting all this time with you, being afraid of things that don’t matter in the long run. Let me finish,” Serana says, before Eres can interrupt. “That’s part of it, yes. But—Eres…”

“It’s… For you, it only feels like it was a few days ago.” Serana tells her, gentle in all things. “But you were asleep. Time didn’t stop passing for us. For me. It was still over a month, for me. I’ve had—” she takes a breath. Closes her eyes. Settles herself. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, since then. Since I realized that I couldn’t wake you again, that morning.”

“I’ve had a month to process things, Eres. You haven’t. And that’s fine,” Serana adds. “It’s fine if you need time, now. But I don’t. Not anymore.”

Eres does not quite know how to respond to that. She does not quite know how to wrap her mind around the fact that - that she has lost _time_. Not in the way of fighting Alduin, or fulfilling her destiny, or even whatever strange sickness has taken hold of her since Coldharbour. But in the way of realizing, suddenly, that the world has kept turning without her.

It seemed like only a few days ago, to her, that night in Skyhaven. It seemed like - like only yesterday, she’d been at High Hrothgar, dismissing her own journal for nonsense. Drifting off in what had seemed like the middle of a conversation, where one moment, she had heard the soft murmur of Serana’s voice in her ear, and the next—

The next, she had been in the Dream. And then she had been in her own bedchamber, in Fellburg, with Auria hovering over her, with Serana looking down at her, with—with the knowledge that she had been dreaming again, yes, but—but not how much time had passed.

She had simply closed her eyes, and a month had passed, and for her - all of that time is missing. There is nothing there but the Dream, and even that, she can hardly remember.

But for them - for the others, for Serana - they had kept living. They had kept working to help her. The sun had still risen in the morning, and set at night. They’d spent days without her. Slept away nights without her. Shared meals without her. They had simply - they had _lived_ , and in a way, she had not.

In a way, time had stopped for her. Before, when it had only been a couple of weeks, somehow - somehow, that had not seemed quite as bad. Somehow, it had not quite _clicked_. Not quite sunken in.

But it isn’t something she can ignore, now. It isn’t something she can pretend does not exist. That she can pretend has not happened. And all because of… Because of _whatever_ is wrong with her.

That they won’t tell her about.

That they are all hiding from her.

Even Serana. Even her.

“Serana,” she says, and there must be something of it in the tone of her voice, because Serana’s brows furrow, because her eyes soften with concern. “Isran said I wouldn’t die,” she says. “ _If_ you could help it.”

Serana’s expression tightens.

“What happens,” Eres asks, “if you can’t help me?”

“That won’t happen.” Serana promises her. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Do I fall asleep again?” Eres asks her. “Will there be a time I don’t wake up from it?” She’s still not sure she’s awake _now._ Serana’s expression twists with pain. “Will I die, if you don’t find something? Answer me, Serana. Honestly.”

Serana swallows. “Yes.”

“If this thing can _kill me_ , then I need to know—”

“Eres, you knowing _is_ what would kill you!” Eres reels back, shaken despite herself—she doesn’t think she’s ever actually heard Serana yell at her before. This—she’s never seen her like _this_.

“We are doing what we can,” Serana’s voice softens, gentles around the edges. “But we can’t help you if you go _digging_ for it.”

“And _wiping my memories_ is a better option?”

“ _No_ ,” Serana snaps, voice cold. “ _That_ was your mother’s idea. You can yell at _her_ about it. Isran and I are against it.”

For a long moment, Eres can only look at her. She tries - tries to process the idea that _Auria_ wants to take away her memories. Wants her to _lose_ a piece of herself. Even if that means she might live, even if that _does_ save her - would she really be herself, at the end of it? Would she really be _Eres_ , anymore, without the experiences that have shaped her?

“Auria?” Eres asks, feeling hollow.

“Auria,” Serana confirms. There is a bit of remorse, in her eyes. Like she is sorry that she has to be the one to tell her this. It is the same look Isran had given her, almost.

“And my mother, as well. Mirabelle…” She shakes her head. “I’m not sure where she stands. She would probably follow Auria’s lead, if it came down to it. As far as I can tell, I don’t think Mirabelle feels that she has the right to an opinion on it—”

“Neither do _you_ ,” heat rushes into her, heat and anger and _fury_ —how _dare_ they? “Neither do _any of you_.”

Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe again, and it is not panic that chokes her, but _anger_.

“Auria thinks she can just—”

“I think,” Serana says, very carefully, “that your mother feels she would rather you lose your memories, than your life. Isran and I - we disagree, on that front. I—it’s not my place, either. I know. I know that, but… They don’t even know for sure if it would work, if it would be a permanent cure or if - if it could just reemerge, later. There’s too many unknowns. And for me, especially…”

Serana shakes her head. “I don’t want to lose you, Eres. Whether that’s to this, or to your mother taking away your memories of me. I know, that that makes me selfish. I’ve never claimed not to be, when it comes to you,” she adds, voice soft with remorse.

“But I promise you, if this is something you don’t want, even as a last resort - I’ll make sure they don’t touch you. I’ll make sure that you—” she swallows, and for a moment she cannot hold Eres’ gaze. For a moment, Eres almost forgets that vampires are not able to cry. Because Serana looks like she might. “I’ll make sure they stay true to your wishes, if it comes to that.”

“If it—” Eres breathes. She tries to. But she feels the dredges of panic rising in her again, she feels—she feels _fear_. And, behind that, somehow—there is a wave of something that is almost like calm.

Calm, perhaps, is not quite the word for it. It feels instead like numbness, like she has felt too much for too long and has simply lost the capacity for it, at the moment. Like she has exhausted all of her emotions for one day, and she is just - out. She’s _run out_. She has nothing left.

“This is going to kill me, isn’t it.”

It is not quite a question. It doesn’t quite need an answer. She asks it all the same.

“Not if I can help it.” Serana says, and there is such a fierce devotion in her that Eres believes it.

She believes her.

“Turn me,” she says, suddenly. “If I’m dying — If it’s killing me, then turn me.”

Serana can do that. Serana can save her, even if no one else can. She can be turned, and she can survive whatever this is, and she can be cured and go back to her life, just the way it was before. She could—she could get around this, somehow, if it comes to that.

But she does not miss the way that Serana looks at her. She does not miss that Serana looks at her as though even that could not save her. As if even that would not be enough.

“Okay,” Serana agrees, all the same, and she does not give voice to the sadness behind her eyes. To the resignation in them. To the darkness in them that speaks of a loss that has not yet happened.

Serana agrees, but everything else that Eres sees in her makes it feel like her death is inevitable. Like there is nothing that can be done. 

But there is nothing else that Eres can cling to. There is no other last-ditch effort that she can think of. She does not want to lose her memories - her memories of Serana, especially. Her love for her. That feels like a fate worse than death. 

But maybe she can pretend, for a moment. Maybe she can pretend that, if it does happen, if she does—if she does end up on death’s door, that at least Serana could bring her back again. 

That at least Serana could save her, if nothing else could. 

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Serana holds her, kisses her, lets her cling to her when she feels she may just lose grip on reality, itself.

Eres has faced down daedra. Vampires. All manner of undead. She’s walked into the Soul Cairn. Walked into Coldharbour. She’s seen Greymarch, up close and personal. She’d faced down Molag Bal himself, and lived.

Eres has felt fear, before. More times than she can count.

But this, tonight - it is the first time that she has felt fear for something intangible. For something nameless, formless, for something that she cannot fight or see or hear or _know of_.

Eres can fight Daedra, and dragons, and Alduin himself.

She cannot fight against an illness she cannot see. She cannot fight against fate itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy howdy that is a lot of angst


	20. Step By Step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> booo sorry about the wait. started a temp job and haven’t had much time to write. alas, i must pay rent. very unfortunate

Something pounds at the door, jolting Eres from her sleep and sending her heart leaping into her throat.

“It’s okay,” Serana says to her, quickly, and she squeezes her tighter for just a moment. In the very next, she is pulling herself away, even as Eres reaches for her, not wanting to let her go. “It’s Delphine.”

“ _Now?_ _”_ Eres considers throwing something at the door. Or maybe at Delphine’s head, when she sees her. But she has nothing in the bed to throw besides pillows, and they’re not nearly hard enough for the lesson she’d like to teach her. Why the hell did Delphine have to wake her, this early, like the bloody Keep was being invaded?

Serana climbs out of the bed, and opens the door with a sigh. Even despite her lack of need for actual sleep, she looks just as tired as Eres feels.

“Delphine,” Serana greets, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Good, you’re here.” Delphine walks in without waiting for an invitation. 

Eres comes to terms with the fact that she will not be going back to sleep any time soon. With a sigh, she sits up in the bed to lean against the headboard. She does not feel quite settled until Serana rejoins her, until she can feel the press of her against her side.

“This couldn’t wait until morning?” Eres asks, and as if to drive the point home, yawns. She catches Serana’s eyes on her, and if not for present company, she might have kissed her - it is difficult to not want to kiss her, when she looks at her with such open tenderness.

“’Fraid not.” Delphine, again without asking, pulls the chair from her desk and sits herself upon it, facing them. “Esbern and I just got back from your little errand.”

“I gathered.” Eres could have guessed that much. She tries, vainly, to run a hand through her hair, bring it to some semblance of order. Without a mirror, she has no idea how rumpled she might look, just now. Not that Delphine seems to give a shit. “What happened? What did the Jarl say?”

“That’s why I came right away,” Delphine explains, voice tight. “The Jarl won’t do it.”

“What?” Eres stares at her. “Doesn’t he know—”

“I explained it to him. I also showed him your letter.” Delphine shakes her head. “But he—and most people, really, haven’t heard anything about any Dragonborn. No one’s _seen_ you, really, outside of that one incident in Kynesgrove. I even overheard someone say they thought it was _Ulfric_.” Delphine mutters a few choice curse words to herself.

Eres scowls. “ _That_ bastard?”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to call him that,” Delphine says slowly. “The Jarl said he _might_ consider it - _if_ you could prove you’re the true Dragonborn. But only if you managed to convince the Rebels and the Imperials to agree to a ceasefire.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“Don’t know.” Delphine’s face twists. “But he said he wouldn’t even think about calling a dragon to the city if it meant that he would be leaving Whiterun vulnerable. Whiterun’s managed to remain neutral for the time being, for the most part, but that doesn’t mean both sides don’t want it for their own. The moment the city’s defenses are down, either one of them could try to lay siege to it.”

Eres presses her hands to her face and lets out a long-suffering groan.

It would figure.

It would figure that, just like she’d expected, she would have to go to the Jarl herself. It would figure that, even then, he would refuse to help her unless she did something for _him_ first—that was how it always worked.

But, organizing a _cease fire_? In the middle of a Civil War? Dragonborn or no, she’s _no one_. How the hell is she supposed to even have a hope of arranging something like that?

Serana rubs her back, offering what little comfort she can. “I don’t see how Eres is supposed to get both sides to lay down their arms. Does he realize just how impossible a task that would be? They’ll never agree to it.”

“They might.” Delphine says slowly. “But you’ll have to be a bit sneaky about it, I expect. Ulfric likely won’t agree unless he thinks Tullius has already agreed to it - from what I know of the man, he’s the type who won’t be the first to bow, if he can help it. Got a reputation to uphold. On the other hand, he’s a Nord, through and through. He _will_ have respect for you, as Dragonborn. Even more so for the Greybeards, if you can manage to get them to participate somehow.”

“The Greybeards?”

“They could host this summit, if we can manage it. They have the space for such a thing, and it _is_ on neutral ground. It’s also a sacred site here in Skyrim - I don’t think either party would be bold enough to risk pissing off the general populace by shedding blood there. If you can get the Greybeards to agree to host it, and bring that to Ulfric first—he may agree to it.”

“And what about this General Tullius?” Eres asks. She can already feels what seems like yet another world, on her shoulders. Now she has the Civil War to worry about? Doesn’t she have enough on her plate already? “Any ideas on how to convince him?”

“That, I’m not sure of.” Delphine shakes her head. “I’ve never met the man. I don’t know how much respect the Imperials would have for the Dragonborn, either, or even the Greybeards themselves. It may be that Tullius would only agree if you could be certain Ulfric would also attend - there must be some concessions the Imperials would like to have, if they can negotiate for it. On the other hand, you could try going for the Jarl instead.”

“Jarl _Elisif?”_

Delphine leans back in her seat, crossing her arms. “She is new to the position, having taken over as Jarl after the death of her husband. From what I’ve heard, she’s been called a bit of a bleeding heart - you may be able to appeal to her better nature, if you can make her understand the costs of ignoring Alduin. On the other hand…”

Delphine grimaces, then. “Ulfric is the one who murdered her husband in the first place. There’s also the chance she won’t be able to see past that, at all. In which case, Tullius is the only option you’d have.”

“Gods.” Eres pinches at the bridge of her nose. She can already feel a headache building behind her eyes, and the sun hasn’t even risen yet. “This just _had_ to get more difficult, didn’t it?”

“I can go to High Hrothgar,” Serana offers. “See if Arngeir will agree to letting us host the summit there. I can make it there much faster than you could.”

Eres looks at her, brow furrowing. “Alone?”

Serana nods, lips pressed into a thin line. “You need to have Auria take a look at you before you even think about going anywhere, even if it’s just to meet with the Jarl. If we can manage it,” Serana’s expression twists, then, and it looks as though whatever she says next is the last thing she actually _wants_ to say. “It may be a good idea to have Auria come along. She could keep an eye on your condition.”

Eres feels ire clawing at the back of her mind. She can’t even _think_ about Auria without feeling angry, just now. She might let her clear her for moving around, if that’s what it would take - but there’s no way in hell she’s going to have Auria tagging along beside her, just waiting for a sign that she might be getting worse, that maybe she needs her memories wiped after all.

Delphine sighs, then. “I suppose Esbern and I can make our own way for High Hrothgar. It will take us longer to reach the summit, and we ought to have everything in place before these negotiations. Esbern’s also been wanting a look at their archives, if he can manage it.” She shakes her head. “He and I will go ahead - I imagine you will reach them before us, regardless,” she says to Serana. “But we’ll wait there for news of the summit.”

“Fine.” Eres waves her off, irritated. The sun’s not even up yet, and she’s already in a terrible mood. “I’ll just fucking stop a war then.” 

Eres hears Serana sigh from somewhere behind her as she climbs out of bed to dress. Donning her armor feels strange, now - it is looser than she remembers it being, and she must cinch it tighter just to make it fit. After a month in such a state, Eres supposes she should be grateful she is still able to walk on her own at all.

“I’ll go wake up your mother.”

“I don’t want to talk to her, Serana.” Eres sits heavily upon the bed to lace her boots up, and she very carefully does not look at her. “If you’re that set on me getting the all-clear before we leave, then get Mirabelle.”

“Eres, you know that Auria would do a better job than Mirabelle. Mirabelle isn’t a healer.”

Eres glares at her boots. “Fine.” If that’s how it’s going to be, then - fine. She will just make sure Auria knows _exactly_ how pissed she is at her, then.

Serana returns with Auria in tow some minutes later. It is the first time Eres has ever seen the woman hesitate to approach her. Serana must have told her that she knew about her little plan.

Good.

“ _Mikros_ ,” Auria starts, shuffling closer. “Please, try to understand the position we were in—”

“Were you ever going to tell me what you planned to do?” Eres stands. She is taller than Auria. Not by much, but she is still taller. Somehow, it makes her feel better to be above her, in this.

Auria’s expression twists. “We did not wish to worry you unnecessarily. Once you had recovered—”

“Bullshit.” Eres doesn’t believe that for a second. “If Serana hadn’t told me about it, you wouldn’t have said anything. You’d have just quietly planned to - to take _me_ away.”

“Eresael—”

“Let me make this _very_ clear.” Eres looks Auria in the eyes, now, because she wants her mother to know just how very serious she is. “If something happens to me, and I cannot make my own decisions - _Serana_ is the only person here I trust to have _my_ wishes in mind. I will get it put in writing if I have to. Serana will have the final call on what happens to me.”

Serana looks away from them both, expression tight. Perhaps that is why Eres feels that she can trust Serana will do the right thing for her. Not just because Serana loves her, but because she knows that Serana will do what _Eres_ would want, even if it hurts her.

Serana, at least, is unendingly loyal. Eres will never have to wonder if _she_ would go behind her back and do such a thing.

Auria folds her hands in front of her waist. Her expression closes, lips pressing tightly together - but the look in her eyes is unreadable. Eres does not even care to attempt to read what is written there. Auria doesn’t _get_ to have an opinion on this. She had forfeited her right to that when she had planned to rid Eres of her memories.

“She is not your mother—”

“Neither are you. You _birthed_ me,” Eres says tightly. “That doesn’t make you a mother. You come here, you act like you know what’s best for me - and you know next to nothing about me. If you did, you’d have _known_ I would never agree to you taking away my _memories_. They’re _part_ of me, Auria. They’re what makes me _me._ ”

Eres _is_ upset. She’s fucking livid, actually, and she probably will be for some time. She still doesn’t necessarily enjoy the pain she sees in Auria’s eyes, knowing that she is the one who is causing it. She’s never liked hurting people, but this - this has gone far enough.

“Until you can prove that you respect me as a _person_ and not just as a daughter, you have no authority here. Anything that happens to me, anything regarding my care goes through Serana, first.” Eres feels Serana’s eyes on her, but her own eyes remain fixed upon Auria’s.

“As you wish.” Auria says, voice carefully level. Her tone is almost business-like, almost reminiscent of how she had spoken to Eres when she had played the role of a handmaiden. The look in her eyes is not. “ _Serana_ is not a mindhealer, Eresael.”

“Good.” Eres retorts. “I’ve had about enough of you poking around in my head.”

There is a part of her - a dark, hateful part of her - that wants to blame Auria for her sickness. That wants to say, _perhaps **you**_ ** _’re_** _the reason I_ _’m like this._ That perhaps Auria had messed something up in her head that first time, and now she’s paying the consequences.

But even incensed as she is, Eres knows that would not be fair. She knows that would be allowing her temper to win, to make her say things she cannot take back. At least _she_ considers the things she cannot take back, unlike some people she seems to know.

“Well?” Eres prompts, impatiently. She has said what she needed to say. Now she wants to _leave_ , before she can start feeling guilty for actually putting her foot down for once. “Are you going to _allow_ me to leave now?”

“Would you listen if I did not?” Auria asks her coolly.

“No.” Eres says. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Serana reach up to pinch at the bridge of her nose, sighing. Eres is being difficult. She knows that she is. She has every right to be difficult, just now, after what Serana had told her. “I’m allowing it for Serana’s peace of mind, not mine.”

“Throw me under the carriage, why don’t you,” Serana drawls. She hands Eres her bag.

Auria reaches up to rub at her temples then, sighing. “Eresael. Know that all I do, I have done for the sake of your well being. I understand that you are upset. You have every reason to be. But consider: if it were Serana in your position, and she were dying, would you do anything you could to save her, even if it meant that you might have to rebuild your life with her later? Or would you prefer to let her die?”

“I wouldn’t strip her of the things that make her who she is.” Eres doesn’t get it - how can her mother just not _understand_? “And what if it wouldn’t have worked? What if you’d killed me, who I am _now,_ just for the chance that it might help, and it went nowhere, and I just got sick again? I would be lost for nothing.”

“There would be a _chance_.” Auria’s voice is quiet, her eyes downcast. “A piece of you would be lost forever, yes. But I would not lose _all_ of you.”

“You,” Eres says pointedly. “ _You_ wouldn’t lose all of me. Have you considered that this isn’t about _you_? It’s my decision, Auria. And I said _no_.”

For a moment, it looks as though Auria may say something else, that she might have tried to argue it more. Instead, she sighs, and her shoulders drop, and she does not say a word more. She only nods her understanding.

Eres looks away from her, her throat feeling uncomfortably tight. The look in Auria’s eyes - it is like her mother believes she is already a lost cause. That losing her, that Eres dying - is inevitable.

…Serana had looked at her that way, too.

Eres _hates_ it. It’s not just that they seem to think she will die, though that is certainly bad enough on its own. It’s that it feels like they have already given up on her. Like they have already accepted that she will die, if she doesn’t let them wipe her memories as they’d wanted to. Even Serana, when Eres had asked her to turn her - even then, Serana had looked at her like that wouldn’t even make a difference.

Like she would die anyways. Like Serana expects her to. Like all of them seem to.

If Eres _is_ going to die, she’s going to do it doing something worthwhile. She’s going to bring down Alduin, one way or another, and if she dies in the process, then - that would be fine, wouldn’t it? She could fulfill her so-called destiny and be done with it.

Eres pointedly ignores the feeling of her heart sinking in her chest. She does not want to think about it. She does not want to _feel it_. She doesn’t want to think about how much of her life she’d barely gotten to enjoy, how much she had wanted to do and never got around to, how much she had allowed her own sense of duty to wear her down to nothing over the past couple of years.

Would she even make it to twenty-five? It’s only a few months away, now. Would she live that long? Perhaps she will. Perhaps it will be the last birthday she sees. Perhaps she won’t live long enough to worry about being older than Serana, after all.

Of everything, it is that thought that hurts the most. It is that thought that sends a lance of pain into her chest, dragging her heart downwards, rending something inside her to pieces.

The idea that she’ll never live long enough to even _be_ old and grey. That she’ll never live long enough to really enjoy her time with Serana, with no world-ending prophecies to weigh them down.

That she’ll never need to even wonder whether marriage might have been something in their future. The amulet around her neck feels as though it could have weighed a thousand pounds.

Eres needs to stop thinking. Stop feeling things. Stop drowning in her own self-pity. And the easiest way to stop thinking is to start _doing_.

Eres does not hug Auria as she leaves. She has never been particularly affectionate with the woman anyways, and she would not want to be after what had happened - but there is a part of her that feels guilty all the same, because she knows there is a possibility that she will not return.

Eres does say goodbye to Yosef and Johanna, and their two children. They know nothing of the severity of her sickness, and she does not tell them.

She will have to see about getting a will drawn up to make sure the estate goes to them when she dies. Who would have expected she would need one, at this age? Certainly not her.

It feels like she’s seeing pity around every corner. Even the horse she saddles seems contrite, somehow.

It is only once the horse is saddled and packed that Eres turns to Serana. “I don’t think you should go to High Hrothgar alone.”

Serana’s brows raise. For a moment, she looks surprised, but that surprise turns quickly to suspicion. “Is there something I should know about them?”

“No, that’s—” not what she meant. It isn’t the monks she’s worried about. “Not them. You don’t like temples, anyways.”

“I don’t,” Serana admits. “But I would only be stopping by to drop off a message. Then I’d meet you in Whiterun.”

Eres shifts on her feet, feeling antsier than usual. She doesn’t like the thought of Serana going to High Hrothgar alone, even if it’s just for the sake of a quick message.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust Arngeir - though, to be fair, she has reason not to, just not on _that_ end - but that she would rather not have Serana feel like she needs to do it. Like she needs to run errands for her, especially to temples, of all places.

More than that… Eres must admit it’s not just the thought of her going to a temple alone that bothers her. It’s the separation itself.

It would not be the first time they’ve separated for a time, of course. And Eres herself is hardly codependent - under any other circumstances, she would not argue quite as much with the idea of Serana venturing off alone. Under other circumstances, Eres might have even reluctantly agreed to it, willing to allow Serana to take this next step of facing her fear of temples alone if that is what she wanted to do.

But that was what Eres might have done _before_. Before she’d realized that _whatever_ it is that is sending her into these long sleeps may eventually kill her.

How much time does she even have left? Could she be sure she wouldn’t simply collapse on the road somewhere and be found by some miscreant or bandit, waking up in some hellhole?

Or, what if she collapsed on the road and simply never woke up again? That could happen, too. Eres could drop dead at any moment, for all she knew, and if she’s alone - then no one would be the wiser. Until people realized she was missing. And by that time, her body might have already been picked apart by scavengers or other wildlife. Whiterun certainly isn’t a stranger to the occasional pack of opportunistic wolves and coyotes.

Eres must also admit there is another reason. A reason that at least sounds less openly pathetic, less cowardly. Almost logical, in fact.

“About that.” Eres tugs at the ends of her hair. It’s getting long again. For a moment, she thinks: She’ll need to trim it soon. Then she remembers it likely won’t matter, anyways. “I don’t think I’ll be let into Dragonsreach on my own.”

At that, Serana sends her a skeptical look. “You’re the Dragonborn, Eres.”

“I’m also an elf,” Eres sighs. Serana frowns. “They’re not just going to let me waltz in the front door like I belong there. But they might be more lenient if you’re with me.”

For a moment, it looks like Serana might have asked her, _Why?_ Eres can almost pinpoint the exact moment it occurs to her. The exact moment that Serana realizes that _she_ would be more easily taken at her word than Eres is, simply because she is much closer to what they might expect of a Dragonborn. What Eres is sure they will expect, if Delphine was right, and they haven’t heard anything from Kynesgrove in Whiterun. Especially if Delphine had not thought to mention it while she was there.

“Hmm…” Serana presses a hand to her chin. “You’ve brought a bit of coin, haven’t you? Why don’t you take a room at the inn until I get there? It shouldn’t take too long. It’s still early enough,” Serana tells her. “I could make it to High Hrothgar and back to Whiterun before morning, I imagine.”

Eres presses a hand to her face.

“Eres, hey,” Serana’s voice shifts then, from logic and rationality to deep, warm concern. “What is it?”

Eres does not cry, for the record. She thinks perhaps yesterday might have sapped all of that out of her at once. Even so, she almost wishes that she could. Perhaps if she did, she might have felt something beyond that hollowness inside her, the yawning chasm in her chest that feels like it might swallow her whole from the inside out.

“I don’t think I should be alone right now.” It is harder than it should be to admit that. It is harder than it should be just to look Serana in the eyes when she says it. Just to not hide from it like she wishes she could. “And I don’t want Inigo, or anyone else coming with me. I want _you._ _”_

“Okay,” Serana agrees at once. She does not even hesitate. No questions asked. Just - _okay_. And that is that.

“I want you to be with me when—” she still can’t quite bring herself to say it out loud. It sounds far too dramatic, like something from some old tragic screenplay. Her life feels a bit like one, these days.

She doesn’t need to, because Serana shushes her all the same. “You’re not dying any time soon. Not if I can help it. Just let me go find Inigo and tell him it’s his turn to go up there instead, and I’ll come with you.”

Eres watches her run off to find him, and she cannot help but to sigh in her absence. _Not if I can help it_ , Serana had said. But she couldn’t. _They_ couldn’t. That was the problem.

If she is going to die, she needs to come to terms with it herself. And she has to make _them_ come to terms with it, too.

Starting with Serana. The first and only woman she’d ever love. That she’d ever want to love.

Eres climbs into her saddle to wait for her. It won’t take Serana long to find Inigo, she imagines, and they should move quickly once they are on the road - Eres tires more easily now, and it would be best if they reached Whiterun soon enough that they could spend the night at the inn for Eres to rest, and see the Jarl in the morning.

The horse shifts impatiently beneath her. The amulet resting against her collar shifts with it, warm and comforting against her skin.

Perhaps, if Eres lived long enough - if she had the chance to live long enough… There's no use thinking about it now. She needs to focus on the present. Tomorrow is never promised, so she will make the best of today. 

* * *

Eres manages to get as far as Dragonsreach’s doors before the guard stop her. She doesn’t even get to _touch_ the door before a guard is approaching her, hand resting on the hilt of his sword at his hip.

“Hold there.” Eres can only see the hard set of his mouth through his helmet. “What is your business here, elf? The market’s down the stairs.”

“I’m here to see the Jarl.”

The guard pauses, looks at her, and starts to laugh. “Nice try,” he says, shaking his head. “Go back on down to the markets where you belong before you get yourself in trouble. You,” he says, looking to Serana standing just beside her, “shouldn’t encourage your little friend here.”

Eres breathes a slow, steadying breath. Yelling at this guard will get her nowhere. Neither will stabbing him, unfortunately.

“The Jarl will want to see me.” She says to him, instead of several choicer words she could have used.

The guard just gives her an unimpressed look. “Do you have any idea how many times I hear that a day, Elf?”

“My name is _Eres_ , not _Elf_ ,” Eres says, quickly losing the battle with her own irritation. “And I’m the Dragonborn.”

“Right,” the guard drawls. “And I’m the bloody High King. Get out of here before I lose my patience.”

“I can certainly prove it if you’d like,” Eres starts, more than willing to _Fus_ this man into the damn pond—but Serana’s hand presses against the small of her back.

“It’s obvious that you don’t actually know who you’re talking to, so we’re willing to forgive your unfortunate ignorance,” Serana says, her voice saccharine sweet in the way that speaks more of impending danger than friendliness. Her polite, practiced smile is cold, eyes sharp. “Even if you don’t believe she is the Dragonborn - this is _Lady_ Eres Svanhilde. Are you denying her right to petition the Jarl?”

The guard, however, merely rolls his eyes. “Right. Tell me another.”

“Fuck this.” If they aren’t going to let her in, she’ll let herself in. Eres shoves her way past him to the door and throws it open without care.

“Hey!” Eres does not look back. “Stop right there!”

. She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t care even when she hears several guardsmen draw their swords. Only when she crests the top of the stairs and is met with a Dunmer woman in plate armor, sword drawn and poised to strike, does she stop.

“What is the meaning of this?” The woman demands. “Who are you to approach the Jarl without an audience?”

“The fucking _Dragonborn_ ,” Eres snaps at her. “I’m told your Jarl wanted to see me in person. Call off your dogs.”

“Irileth,” the guard huffs, finally reaching the stairs just behind her, “my apologies. I’ll have this woman arrested at once—”

“Try it, and see what happens.” Eres bites back at him. She turns to Irileth to find the woman looking at her with an incredulous expression. “You want me to prove I’m Dragonborn? Because I can. Starting with him,” she points at the guard, scowling. “Though there may be some collateral damage.”

Irileth’s face twists. “You expect us to believe you are the Dragonborn simply because you say that you are? You’re not even a Nord.”

For a moment, Eres considers blowing that guard off the top of the stairs. It would serve him right, and it would certainly prove her point well enough. But then she remembers that assault on a guard is technically a crime, even if they’re asking for it. The last thing she needs is to get thrown in the dungeons.

Eres calls another Shout to mind instead, gratified when she leaves Irileth in the dust, when she is suddenly within mere feet from the Jarl in an instant. _Wuld_ had its uses - though she had not expected this to be one of them.

The Jarl looks up at her from his seat, jaw hanging open, eyes wide.

“I take it you believe me now.” Eres says. She hears footsteps behind her, shouts of alarm as the guard realize she is not where they had last seen her.

“You…” The Jarl rises to his feet, frowning at her. “You are not what I expected. You are not what _anyone_ expected, I imagine…”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” Eres is already getting quite tired of hearing that. “You wanted to see me - now you’ve seen me. Now are you going to _help me_ or are you going to sit around and let the world burn around you?”

The Jarl’s expression cools. He crosses his arms over his chest. “You would do well to show some respect in _my_ palace - Dragonborn or not.”

“I’ll show respect when you’ve earned it,” Eres replies, unimpressed. There is an instant, just after, that she realizes she has let her mouth run far ahead of her brain. She blows past it, hoping that no one will call too much attention to such blatant disrespect - or worse, throw her out before she can make herself heard.

“I sent my people here to ensure I would be able to find Alduin and stop the _world_ from ending. And you send them back to me and say that you won’t let us use the trap unless we arrange a cease fire? Unless _we_ ensure your city is safe? You do realize that _everyone_ will die if we don’t do this, don’t you?”

“I am aware of that, yes,” the Jarl remarks dryly. He had not missed her comment, by the look on his face. But he does not mention it. “But I am also aware that Alduin has not acted yet. The War however, is our _current_ problem. I cannot place my citizens in danger on a whim—”

“It’s not a _whim—_ _”_

 _“Eres_ ,” Serana’s touches at her back again. “I’m sorry,” Serana says—to the _Jarl_ , of all people. “My—friend, here, is a little on edge. Understandably so, I would think. Why don’t we all find a quieter place to have this discussion? Perhaps in private?” Serana offers. “It’s been a long ride to get here.”

The Jarl eyes her for a moment. Reluctantly, he nods. “So be it,” he says, grudgingly it seems. “You are fortunate I have no remaining audiences for the rest of the day.”

“Thank you,” Serana says, catching Eres’ eye meaningfully. When the Jarl turns to lead them to the next room, Serana shakes her head, lowering her voice. “Now’s not the time to let your pride get in the way.”

“This isn’t about my _pride_ ,” Eres mutters, feeling somehow blindsided by Serana’s criticism. It’s not _her_ fault they were all such idiots. Could she really be blamed for having such little patience for them?

“Maybe not,” Serana says carefully. She reaches, and very quickly grasps Eres’ hand just long enough to give it a reassuring squeeze. “But it _is_ about theirs. And stepping on their pride isn’t going to make them any more likely to help us.”

Serana has a point. That doesn’t mean Eres has to like it.

The Jarl leads them into a long hall near the throne room, past several doors, and finally into a small meeting room with a single table. At every step, there is Irileth by his side, watching each of them like a hawk.

“ _Don_ _’t_ try anything funny,” Irileth mutters as they enter. Eres rolls her eyes as she moves ahead of them.

“Take a seat.” Jarl Balgruuf instructs them. He takes his own at the head of the table without care, slouching into it like he could not have cared less for the conversation that is to come. Irileth stands at attention at his right side, a hand still wrapped tightly around the hilt of the blade at her hip.

Eres does, but only because she is actually quite tired, already. The ride to Whiterun had been a long one, and she had been well tired by the time they’d reached the plains. By the time they’d stabled their horses and climbed the winding hill to the city gates, Eres had been bone tired and ready for sleep. But even as the city had bathed in that warm reddish glow of sunset, Eres had known she would not be able to sleep without seeing the Jarl first.

But, even walking up the stairs to Dragonsreach had seemed an insurmountable task when she’d reached them, though she had refused Serana’s help where she could be seen. If she is trying to present herself as Dragonborn, she cannot let on that she’s anything less than perfect. They will already scrutinize her enough just for being an elf. Adding her sickness to the equation would only make them less likely to place their trust in her.

Serana sits at her right side, equal to her in all ways. She does not stand on ceremony as Irileth does, as some kind of glorified bodyguard.

“So,” the Jarl says. A servant enters, and the Jarl does not even blink as he is poured a tankard of ale, or as a plate of breads and cheeses is left on the center of the table. Eres had not seen him order anyone to bring it for him - he must simply have servants waiting on him hand and foot. “You are the Dragonborn.”

Eres bites back the sarcastic response that comes to mind first. Instead, she says, “Yes, I am.”

The Jarl looks her up and down. Despite having seen her power for himself, he does not look particularly convinced by her appearance. “Had I not seen it for myself,” he says, “I would not have believed it.”

Eres feels a hand squeeze her knee. Serana, reminding her to bite her tongue.

Normally, Eres thinks, she would not have such a problem with at least pretending to be polite enough for a man like the Jarl. She has had to bite her tongue on more than one occasion with men in positions of power. This should not have been as difficult for her as it is. But between her sickness, and her general tiredness from the trip to Whiterun itself - her patience has worn razor-thin.

“It is true, whether you would like to believe it or not.” Eres keeps her tone clipped short, in hopes that she will not sound as caustic as she feels towards him just now. “You received Delphine and Esbern, did you not?”

“I did,” Jarl Balgruuf confirms, nodding. He does not thank the servant as they leave. Does not even so much as glance at them. The servant might as well have been a wall fixture, for as much as he noticed them. “I am at least passingly familiar with Delphine, if not the old man. But,” he shakes his head, “what you ask of me is impossible.”

“Impossible?” Eres repeats. “Or is it simply something you don’t _want_ to do?”

“It is not a matter of what _I_ want,” the Jarl replies, frowning at her. “I would be placing my citizens in danger for this venture of yours. You do understand that, don’t you? Inviting a dragon to Dragonsreach… unthinkable, even in peacetime. Now? While there is a war going on? While the Rebels and Imperials are already trying to knock down my doors? It would be asking for trouble.”

“I saw several Imperials on my way here.” Eres frowns right back at him. “Here in the palace, even. And not a single Stormcloak. As far as it appears, you have already allied yourself with the Empire. Why not simply ask them to garrison the city until this matter has been dealt with?”

The Jarl’s face twists. “Were it only so easy,” he mutters. “I will forgive your ignorance in this, elf—”

“ _Eres_ ,” she snaps, scowling at him. “I have a name.”

“…Eres,” the Jarl says, slowly, surprising even her. “You are unaware of the politics at play here. I cannot expect you to understand. The Imperials have access to the city, yes, but they do not command it. They _could_ not—for the most powerful families within this city back the Rebels. Including the Companions. If I were to bow to Imperial demands, do you have any idea how quickly I would be unseated? It is a delicate position I am in. I would ask you to understand.”

“I understand your _position_ ,” Eres replies tersely. “But—all due respect—your position isn’t going to be secure either way if you don’t let me do this. It’s the only way I’ll be able to track down Alduin and put an end to this. If I don’t, then we’re all doomed. Including you. Including everyone in this city.”

“There is no telling how much time that will be from now,” Jarl Barlgruuf says pointedly. “Alduin has not been seen in the skies since Helgen. There have only been scattered reports of dragon attacks throughout the entirety of Skyrim. We have time—”

“Who is _we?_ _”_ Eres interrupts him. The hand at her knee squeezes again, but it does not settle her nerves, this time. “Last I checked, _you_ _’re_ not going to be fighting him. I am.”

“I am aware.” The Jarl replies coolly. “That does not change the fact that _we_ —Whiterun—has time to meet your demands. Until such time as Alduin becomes an _imminent_ threat, or the Civil War has ended - I will not employ Dragonsreach to this end. It leaves Whiterun far too vulnerable. As I said to Delphine, I am willing to allow it _if_ a ceasefire is arranged for the duration of this ‘trap’. But only then.”

Eres leans back in her seat, cupping a hand to her chin. For a long moment, she does not say anything at all. She holds the Jarl’s gaze, mind working in overtime, trying to discern a way that she could make him _understand_ without having to go to Ulfric and Tullius.

From the look on Jarl Balgruuf’s face, Eres does not think he will sway easily, no matter how she might appeal to him. She has not heard bad things about him.

Truth be told, much of what she has heard of this Jarl in passing had been that he was a fair man, and did his best to balance the warring politics within Whiterun to attain a wavering, fragile neutrality. It was true that Whiterun _was_ a balancing act - she did not know the specifics, but she knew enough to know that the central hub of Skyrim had to be one, just as the Imperial City often had been.

Too many minds and opinions in one place meant one thing: conflict, and a lot of it. That Balgruuf had managed to retain his position as Jarl for so long is impressive in and of itself. A lesser man might have already been mobbed and beheaded, or otherwise ousted by one side or another. Whiterun, without his leadership, could very easily become nothing short of a battleground - both the Imperials and the Rebels would love nothing more than control over it.

She does not _like him_ , necessarily. But she can respect him, if nothing else. Even if she does even that reluctantly - she knows that even her hesitance on that end is borne from selfishness, from personal grievances with his denial of her wishes rather than anything against his character, itself.

She had not established any kind of rapport with anyone in Whiterun the few times she had visited here, and perhaps that had been a mistake. Perhaps, if she had been more insistent on building relationships she could use later down the line, she would not be having so much trouble now.

She had not so much as met Balgruuf until today. Her longest stay in Whiterun had been at the hands of Altano, working alongside the Arkanite in the Hall of the Dead. She had little contact with anyone else in Whiterun, outside of that.

Then there was Solitude - her one encounter with Jarl Elisif had amounted to little more than walking into the audience chamber wearing a gown and waiting to be noticed - for the sole purpose of being a walking advertisement for a bit of easy coin. She doubted the Jarl even remembered her. She certainly wouldn’t, had she been in Elisif’s place. Eres had been rather wholly unremarkable, at that time.

And Ulfric - the few times she had been to Windhelm had also been purely due to Vigilant work. First with Altano, and then again on her own, with Inigo. Not once had she ever so much as spoken with Ulfric himself, having made a point of avoiding him whenever she needed to enter the palace. All of her dealings with Windhelm had been through his steward, Jorleif. She had no allyship to call on there, either, though she doubted she would have one regardless, given her nature.

She should have spent more time cultivating actual connections in the holds of Skyrim. How disappointed her father would be in her. One would think being raised by a man who’d seemingly made a career out of cozying up to men in power might have taught her something. Too bad it hadn’t. 

“You’re asking me to stop a war,” Eres says at last. “You do realize how impossible that would be, don’t you?”

“And defeating Alduin himself will be any easier?” Jarl Balgruuf asks, raising a brow. “I am not asking you to stop a war, by any means. I am telling you that Dragonsreach cannot be used for your purposes so long as the war continues. _If_ you decide to attempt to arrange a ceasefire between the two sides… That is your decision. You are more than welcome to wait until a victor is declared.”

Eres almost laughs in his face. The war had been going on for _years_. Almost a decade, if one counted when the tensions had started rising in the first place. Officially, it had at least begun in earnest by the time Eres had come to Skyrim, and that was nearly two years ago. There’s no end to this war in sight, and Jarl Balgruuf damn well knows it.

“We don’t have that long to wait.”

Jarl Balgruuf drums his fingers on the table. For a long moment, he is utterly silent, his eyes distant. When he finally speaks, it is with a begrudging reluctance that speaks volumes to just how much he dislikes the idea.

“It may be that I can help you after all, Dragonborn. Do you believe that you may be able to convince Ulfric of this proposed truce?”

Honestly, Eres does not know the answer to that. She’s never met Ulfric herself, only seen the man in passing. She _did_ at least have some familiarity with his steward, which might give her some leniency in approaching Ulfric himself for such a thing… But that was no guarantee that Ulfric would ever agree. But, if what Delphine said was true…

“If General Tullius would agree, I think Ulfric could be persuaded,” she says carefully. That is not a lie, and she is not going to pretend that she is certain of anything at this point. “I’m told he has some respect for the Greybeards. High Hrothgar could be used as a neutral meeting ground. I’ve already sent word ahead to them.”

“Good,” Jarl Balgruuf says, nodding slowly. “Good. That is good, yes.” He clears his throat then, and finally straightens in his seat. “I have some pull with Tullius. If you can manage to convince Ulfric, I believe Tullius will be more than willing. The Imperials have suffered heavy losses as of late, and may be willing to agree to a truce simply for the opportunity to recuperate in peace, if nothing else. If that means you also get your dragon trap, then—”

“Everyone’s happy,” Eres finishes, though the word ‘happy’ does not quite seem to be appropriate. “Will Tullius be able to reach High Hrothgar?”

Jarl Balgruuf chuckles. “He is old, but he is not _that_ old. He will reach High Hrothgar with no problem, should this proceed to negotiations. I will put the idea in Tullius’ head for now. When you have news of Ulfric, send word to me of his decision. I unfortunately do not have any relationship with his wizard, so it will have to be by courier. I trust you can find someone worthwhile.”

Finding a reputable courier is not what Eres is worried about. “You’re sure Tullius will agree? Ulfric may not be convinced if Tullius isn’t on board.”

Balgruuf nods. “Tullius is a reasonable, honorable man. He will at least attend in good faith. That, however, is all I can promise. In return,” he says, raising his brows pointedly, “I expect to also be at this table, when Whiterun’s fate may be involved.”

“Reasonable,” Eres agrees. She had expected that much. She does not quite know what these negotiations may entail - it is not like she has any experience with navigating war treaties - but she had expected Jarl Balgruuf would want some say in it, if he was offering to reach out to Tullius himself. He would not do such a thing for nothing.

Jarl Balgruuf stands, suddenly, holding his hand out to her. She rises to match him, Serana rising at her side.

“I trust we have an agreement, then, Dragonborn.”

Eres clasps the Jarl’s hand with her own. “We do, my Jarl.” The words taste foul in her mouth - she has always hated sitting on ceremony. “I will make way to Windhelm and contact you with any developments on Ulfric’s end.”

“Best of luck to you,” Balgruuf says dryly. “I have the feeling you will need it. Ulfric is not fond of your kind.”

“I am well aware.” Eres does not want to think about Windhelm just yet. She is certain she will have to prove herself all over again, and Ulfric would be even more difficult to convince than most. He might not even accept her as Dragonborn at all, if the rumors of how deeply he resented elves had any water to them.

“There is a guest room in the west wing,” Balgruuf says unexpectedly. “Proventus can show you where it is.”

Seeming to materialize out of thin air, the man appears at the door as it opens - or perhaps he had always been there, watching over them.

“Is that wise, my Jarl?” Irileth asks lowly.

“Yes,” Proventus agrees from the door, frowning deeply. “We need not open Dragonsreach to every vagrant who wanders in.”

“Vagrant?” Jarl Balgruuf repeats. “Watch your tongue, Proventus. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Perhaps if you were a Nord, you would have more respect. This is the _Dragonborn_ , Proventus, not the common rabble. We shall be hospitable, as tradition demands.”

The look on Proventus’ face speaks clearly of just what he thinks of that idea. “The tavern is good enough for you to spend time in. I don’t see why she should be any different.”

“I don’t sleep at the tavern.” Balgruuf says. “And neither will they. Show them to their rooms, Proventus. I will hear no more of this.”

In his wake, Proventus regards them both with an expression that could only be described as muted disgust. “Very well,” he speaks through a hard jaw and gritted teeth. “If you will follow me.”

Proventus leads them to the west wing of the palace, down several winding hallways, and finally to a set of double doors. There, he pushes them open, leading them into a suite that could have fit Eres’ own bedchambers twice over and still have room remaining. The doors open into what appears to be a sitting room, with a fireplace in one wall and shelves stacked to the brim with books, a winerack against one wall.

Proventus is, undoubtedly, perhaps the most disdainful tour guide Eres has ever seen.

“The bath,” Proventus pushes open a door, and gestures inside. Eres holds back a whistle of appreciation.

The room is as large as a young child’s bedroom, perhaps, in a normal home, only the floor is made of stone, and in the center of it all is the bath, carved into the stone itself and sunken several feet into the floor so that it is more similar to what one might have found in an Imperial bathhouse than a Nordic home. In fact, had it been limestone rather than dark slate, she might have mistaken it for an Imperial bath at first glance. She may have to see about getting one like this in Fellburg, at some point, if she can afford it. There was of course the large bath in the basement, but that was hardly private.

“And the bedchamber.” Proventus opens the double doors on the opposite side of the entrance room. Within it is a bed large enough to have fit both Serana and Eres and likely several more people besides with room left over. “If you have need of anything, there is a bell by the door. I would strongly recommend you remain within these rooms overnight.”

Eres looks at him, nonplussed. “Are you going to have someone guard the room then?”

Proventus smiles coldly. “Perhaps I shall. I will be informed if you decide to stick your nose where it does not belong, Elf.”

“Worry about your own nose.” Proventus’ brow furrows. “You’ve got a bit of brown, right here,” Eres says, gesturing at the tip of her nose.

Proventus gets halfway to lifting his hand to his own nose before he realizes. His face morphs into a dark scowl. With a huff, the man spins on his heel and slams the doors behind him as he leaves.

Serana chuckles in his wake. “I’m sure that’s going to make him very fond of you.”

“I don’t too much care what he thinks of me.” Eres does a slow turn, all the same, looking around the room. “If this is how big the guestroom is, how massive must the Jarl’s room be?”

“Probably best not to wonder at it.” Serana shrugs. “It’s all a bit excessive.”

“Says the girl with a castle.”

“I _had_ a castle,” Serana corrects.

“Technically, it is still yours.”

“Maybe,” Serana admits. She peers into the bathroom herself, plainly impressed by its extravagance. “But why would I ever go back to it, when you’re here?”

Eres cannot help but to laugh at her. When Serana looks back at her, frowning, Eres grins. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”

“Help myself with what, exactly?” Serana, bless her, looks genuinely confused. The fact that she might say such things without even realizing how they sound makes it even more endearing, somehow.

Eres goes to her, then, wrapping her arms around Serana’s waist, hugging her close. This close, she must tilt her head back to see her, but just this once, she doesn’t quite mind it. They had been in Fellburg no more than a day ago, and still - somehow it seems that this is the first time they have truly been alone in months.

“You’re cute,” Eres tells her, and means it.

Serana raises a brow at her. “Me? You’re calling _me_ cute?”

“Is that so shocking?”

“Yes,” Serana deadpans. “People don’t call me _cute,_ Eres. Think of my reputation.”

“ _What_ reputation?”

Serana scowls at her. The effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that she kisses her not a moment later. “You should bathe.”

Eres pulls back, making a face. “Are you telling me I stink?”

Serana laughs at her. “No. But _I_ want to bathe, and I’m being chivalrous.”

“You could just join me.” Eres offers, half between a joke and genuine teasing, if only because it has been too long since she has flustered her.

Serana, however, does not miss a beat. “I could,” she says simply, and she pulls Eres closer by the hips, and kisses her with a simmering heat beneath the surface, a heat that Eres feels down to her toes and back again, and by the time that Serana pulls away from her, it takes Eres several seconds to remember exactly what they had been talking about before.

Perhaps Eres had miscalculated. This had not gone the direction she had expected it to.

“Maybe not,” she manages, with embarrassing difficulty. “If I actually want to bathe, that is.”

Serana does let her pull away, but not without a look that promises more things than it doesn’t. “I’d let you bathe,” she says. “Eventually.”

Eres feels heat leap to her cheeks, and even more settle much lower. “ _Serana,_ ” she says, and it might have been more effective a scolding if Serana could not very well hear just how fast her heart is racing.

Serana chuckles at her, turning to leave. “Going, dear,” she drawls, and closes the door behind her.

Eres presses her hands to too-warm cheeks, feeling like the whole world has tilted on an axis and she is the only one who had not been aware of it. She _knows_ it’s been a month since Skyhaven, she does - but it still feels like merely a week ago to her at most, and Serana’s newfound self-assurance is sending her reeling. Surely a month could not make _this_ much difference, could it? How did it seem like they had switched places?

Eres has to wonder if it’s real. It seems to sudden, to her, that Serana would start teasing _her_ instead of the other way around. Was it even real confidence, then, or was it possible Serana was only putting on an act for Eres’ benefit?

Then again, Eres is usually able to tell when Serana is hiding something, and even more so when it has something to do with their - progress, so to speak. Serana has never hidden her insecurities on that end, and Eres is not even sure if she would be able to at all. It had always been far too obvious when Serana was uncomfortable, at least to Eres.

 _That_ had not seemed like discomfort, or any kind of insecurity at all. That had felt much more like Serana as she’d been when they’d first met - confident and cheeky and all too willing to say something implicative if it meant flustering Eres. Eres had almost managed to forget just how maddening Serana could be when she was feeling playful, because Serana has always been cautious when it came to their relationship.

Now it feels like Serana has thrown caution to the wind. That maybe Serana _hadn_ _’t_ been lying when she’d said she was ready, and Eres is not sure how to handle that at all.

She had expected gradual. She had expected slow, step by step progress. One step at a time. She had not expected to fall into a coma and wake up with Serana seemingly several miles ahead of her, waiting for her to catch up. When had that happened? _How_ had that happened?

Eres drags her hands down her face, letting out a weary sigh.

Here she is. Prophesied Dragonborn. Thrown into the middle of a Civil War. Having to negotiate a truce between the Imperials and Rebels so that she can trap a dragon so that she can fight Alduin so that she can save the world? Easy.

Yet, navigating the brand-new world of her girlfriend being a bit more of a flirt? Suddenly, saving the world doesn’t seem so hard in comparison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sgdjd sorry i know these transition chapters can be a bit boring but hey at least there’s cute seres at the end right??


	21. Heavy Lies the Crown

There is a certain look that Eres gets about her, when there is something that reminds her of her time as a Vigilant, and of Altano. It is the same look Serana had seen on her face in Kynesgrove, and it is a look that Serana now finds herself even more wary of than she had been before. There is a fear in her, admittedly, that Eres will remember, that nothing they have done to hide the truth of the matter will have worked, and Eres would not wake again when she sleeps.

When they arrive in Windhelm, several days after leaving Whiterun, Eres gets that look about her again. More than that, there is a look of trepidation about her as they approach the Palace of Kings, and Serana does not need to guess to understand why.

But she cannot read minds, and she would not refute that she is perhaps a bit more paranoid than she otherwise would be. She has to know where Eres’ mind is, what she is thinking of - and what she is remembering.

“This is where that investigation was, wasn’t it? Where you ran into him the second time.”

Serana does not have to specify _who_. They both know who she means.

Eres glances at her, her lips pressing into a thin line. There is a troubling guardedness in her eyes, here in Windhelm, and Serana has decided very quickly that she does not like this city. Not just for the racism, but purely for what it does to Eres, herself.

“It was.” Eres confirms. She eyes the guard warily as they enter the palace doors, but they do not stop her as the guards at Whiterun had - they merely glance at her, giving her little beyond a cursory glance. But Eres had made certain to pull her hood high on her head, covering her ears beneath it. “Down in the dungeons, here.”

Serana follows the direction of Eres’ gaze, to a nondescript door on the right side of the hall. She senses nothing unusual about it. Whatever had once been behind that door is long gone now.

Even so, it is still unsettling to be so near to a place where Molag Bal had terrorized Eres, to know that she is so close to where he may have made the decision to drag her to Coldharbour at Bruiant…

Eres slows as they enter the entrance hall, stepping closer to her side. Her eyes are fixed just ahead of them, where the throne sits upon a raised dias - and where Ulfric slouches in his seat, his expression distant as one of his advisors speaks to him.

From here, if Serana tunes out of all else, she can hear them - the burly man at his side complaining of the Imperials, of how they might move upon them, while Ulfric silently listens.

At Ulfric’s right hand side, several steps beneath the raised platform the throne sits upon, is a man who watches the hall like a hawk - and has already spotted the two of them. His hands remain folded mildly behind his back, but Serana can see the tension in his form, the suspicion in his gaze as they approach.

“That’s Jorleif,” Eres says to her, voice hushed. In the hall, with as many people as Ulfric keeps hovering around him, it is unlikely she will be heard. She speaks as though her voice might be carried, all the same. “He’s the steward I dealt with on the investigation.”

“It seems like he remembers you.” Serana eyes the man in return. He is definitely watching them - or rather, Eres - very, very closely. He has not approached them yet, but she has no doubt that he will. “Let me guess: he doesn’t like you.”

Eres purses her lips. “I don’t know if he does or doesn’t. It’s not like I came here to socialize. I was just doing a job. And I did it,” she says. “Whether he liked me or not, I got the job done. I’m hoping that means he’ll listen, and let me speak with Ulfric himself.”

“Hmm…” Serana does not know how much faith she would put in that. Jorleif may seem to recognize Eres, but he doesn’t seem to be especially glad to see her.

Jorleif seems to sense that they are headed for him, for he steps down from his perch and closes the distance with them himself.

“Keeper.” He greets tightly, when he is within a few feet of them at last. “You will forgive me if I am not especially pleased to see you. Is there some development we need to be aware of with the statue? We have had no disappearances since your last visit—”

“No,” Eres says quickly. She drops her hood, clearly seeing no point in hiding her appearance anymore, now that she has been recognized. “This has nothing to do with that, actually. As far as I am aware, the statue should not pose any problem in the future anymore. However,” she admits, “I am not the one to ask. I am no longer Keeper.”

Jorleif’s brows raise. Briefly, he glances to Serana, but he does not seem especially curious as to her presence.

“We had not heard.” The steward says slowly. “If not for the statue, then why have you come?” His eyes narrow. “If you are no longer Keeper, then, I am afraid you have little business here…” He trails off, seeming uncertain as how to address her.

“Eres.” Eres supplies. “It’s just Eres, now. I need to speak with Ulfric.”

Jorleif’s brows raise higher still. “ _Ulfric_?” He repeats, looking between the two of them. “What business have you with the Jarl? Anything you believe you must bring to him,” he says slowly, his expression tightening, “will go through me, first, as his steward.”

Serana glances at Eres. She had not had much patience for the Jarl’s men at Whiterun. But Eres, if she is feeling at all frustrated, hides it well. Perhaps it is that she knows Windhelm is not a place that she can speak freely without consequence.

“I expected as much.” Eres says. She takes a breath, seemingly bracing herself for whatever may come next. Serana resists the urge to reach for her - she does not know how well such affection would be received in Windhelm, given how backwards they seemed to be about everything else. “I wish to discuss matters of a political nature with him.”

“Political.” Jorleif’s suspicion has returned again. “And what might these matters be, exactly?”

“Arranging a truce between the Rebels and the Empire.”

Jorleif blinks. He barks out a derisive laugh. “If you believe my Jarl will make any deal with the likes of the Imperials - you are sorely mistaken.”

“That depends on how seriously he takes the threat of Alduin,” Eres replies, without missing a beat. She does not even so much as blink in the face of his open derision. “There is something I need from the Jarl of Whiterun in order to track down Alduin and put an end to this resurgence of the dragons - and whatever Alduin’s endgame may be. The Jarl will not agree so long as the war rages around him. General Tullius is willing to arrange a temporary ceasefire,” Serana must admit she is impressed by how certain Eres makes this sound despite not having met the man herself, “ _if_ Ulfric were to agree to negotiations.”

 _“Jarl_ Ulfric,” Jorleif corrects. He eyes her up and down, his lip curling. “And what gives you such authority now, to arrange such a thing? And why is Alduin any of your concern to begin with—”

“Alduin should be _all_ of our concern,” Eres cuts in. “Given that he means to kill everyone. He’s not going to spare either Imperials _or_ Rebels, when it comes down to it. We are all in danger of dying to him. As for why he is my concern…” Eres closes her eyes briefly. Serana can see the restraint plain on her face. “I am the Dragonborn. It’s my duty to put an end to him.”

Jorleif stares at her for a long, pregnant moment. When he finally speaks again, it is with something close to pity. “I do not know what fate has befallen you that you have lost your title, and so think to lay claim to that which you cannot possibly understand, but—”

Eres’ jaw tightens, her eyes hardening. “Would you like me to prove it, _steward_?” She asks pointedly, making his title sound more of an insult than a form of respect.

Jorleif pauses, a certain wariness in his eyes.

“You would think, after what happened here, that you would know I don’t make claims I don’t intend to follow up on. Consider it a favor for handling your vampire problem, if you must. I need to speak with Ulfric.”

“We paid the Vigilants for your time here,” Jorleif argues. “We owe you nothing.”

Eres raises a brow. “You paid the _Vigilants_ , yes. Not me. And now that I am not affiliated with them, I have no reason to hold my tongue about how many of your own citizens you put in danger by housing your dungeons in the very same cells the vampires below had raided not twenty years before. As far as I am aware, your Jarl makes his appeal to those of the common class - how might they react to being confronted with the fact that he does not care for them nearly as much as he pretends to?”

Jorleif’s expression contorts into a scowl. “You think you can blackmail the _Jarl?_ The rightful ruler of—”

“Your Jarl murdered the rightful ruler of Skyrim. Don’t think no one knows that he used the _Thu_ _’um_ to win a duel he might have otherwise lost on equal grounds. Or is that the Nordic way? To bring a knife to a fistfight, and claim fair game?”

Had Jorleif’s face twisted any further, Serana is not certain he might not have gotten stuck that way.

“You had your uses as Keeper, _elf_ ,” he spits, “but you’ll find that your kind don’t enjoy the same privileges here as anywhere else. Your conniving will get you nowhere in this court! Return to the forests where you belong if you dislike our people as much as you claim. That you should think this behavior would afford you the right to so much as breathe the same air as him speaks volumes to the arrogance of you and yours. And you wonder why Skyrim wishes to be rid of you.”

“Skyrim would be _lost_ without the Imperials, you bumbling idiot. Or do you forget that the Forsworn are what you were before the Empire civilized you?”

Serana swears under her breath, reaching to pull at Eres’ arm. She had clearly overestimated just how much Eres could restrain herself in the face of such unapologetic racism. It is not that she doesn’t think Jorleif deserves it, but _fuck_ —this is going worse than the meeting with Balgruuf had gone, and that was saying something.

Jorleif only laughs. “Rich,” he says, “coming from a savage whose people still live in _trees_. Come back when your people learn to build a proper house. Perhaps then you might be equal to a _child_ , at least. Then again,” he adds, voice cooling, “I have heard you eat your own dead. So I suppose we cannot expect too much from the likes of you.”

“That’s a **_lie!_** ”

To say that chaos erupts would be putting it mildly. One instant, Serana is trying to pull Eres away from the man, and the next - the man is hurtling across the stone flooring of the damn palace, tumbling end over end until he smacks into the bottom stair - and then there are the shouts of the guards around them, the sound of swords drawing in every direction, and the steward scrambles to his feet to scream for the guard to arrest them, that Eres will be executed for this insolence in the Jarl’s court and -

Someday, Serana might feel like she should be commended for her restraint. In the present, the only thing that stops her is the fact that Eres has a blade to her throat and even Serana is not sure if she would be fast enough to kill him before he opens her throat. Her instinct to protect Eres at any cost rages with the logic that insists she cannot reach him in time and - no, it is not restraint that stops her at all.

Serana’s mind works in overtime even as more guards approach them, even as one wrenches her own arms behind her back - her eyes on the man who has twisted Eres’ arm behind, who holds his sword across her throat and is just waiting for an excuse, for a signal, for permission to kill her right there where they stand. Could she kill him and be sure his hand would not slip? Could she manage a death so instantaneous that he could not kill Eres out of spite?

“Throw them _both_ in the dungeons to rot!” Jorleif screeches, pointing emphatically with one hand as though they could have been mistaken for someone else. “You _dare_ raise a hand to me in this court—”

“Stop.”

Jorleif’s voice dies in his throat. The hall goes so quiet that Serana cannot help but to look for the speaker - for the man that rises slowly from his throne, eyes hard beneath a heavy brow.

Ulfric is not a weak looking man, Serana will give him that much. He is the very embodiment of a Nord, tall and broad shouldered, with sharp features and sharper eyes. He dresses not in the finery of a Jarl, but the armor of a warrior, and now he descends the short few stairs from the raised platform of the throne to the hall below, and every person stills in his presence.

If nothing else, he is a man who holds about him an aura of power. She is not surprised a man such as him had managed to gain such a following despite his treason.

Ulfric stops, a few mere steps from Eres. The man positively dwarfs her, taller even than Serana herself by several inches, and twice as wide besides of pure muscle. He looks down his nose to her, as if to drive home the point of just how much bigger he is than her.

“That,” he says to her, his speech slow and measured and surprisingly even-toned, “was a Shout you used just now. Was it not?”

He is almost even polite about it. Serana finds herself scowling all the same, uncertain why his measured approach makes her more uneasy than if he had been openly aggressive.

Eres does not seem half as unsettled as she is. By contrast, she sneers up at him, eyes dark with her anger. “How does it feel? Knowing your god chose an elf over you?”

Had Serana’s arms been free, she might have smacked herself in the face. Leave it to Eres to be in a situation this tense and _still_ manage to try pissing off the one person who might be able to call off the guard.

The guard who jostles her in his arms, swearing at her - Serana smells blood on the air, and it takes everything in her not to lunge at him.

“Ah.” Ulfric says. “Dragonborn.”

Serana hears a murmur, feels a sudden uncertainty in the air around her—the guard holding her shifts, his grip loosening ever so slightly. _“Dragonborn?”_ she hears him mutter, under his breath.

“I had wondered.” Ulfric’s speech is short. To the point. Blunt. He does not mince words in the slightest. His expression does not so much as shift from its impassive, neutral mask. “Release them.”

“But, my Jarl—” Jorleif starts. His mouth snaps shut as Ulfric glances at him.

The guard behind Serana hesitates, but complies. Serana makes a show of rolling out her shoulders, catching his gaze with her own. She allows a spark of magic to jump between her fingers as a warning. The man pales, taking several steps away from her, and Serana is satisfied - for the moment.

The guard holding Eres loosens his grip slightly, but does not release her. “She attacked the—”

“Did I stutter?” Ulfric interrupts him. “I said release them. _Both_ of them. That is the Dragonborn you are manhandling, boy.”

Serana glances at the guard, but he does not look much younger than Ulfric himself. All the same, the man’s face twists beneath his helmet - but he releases Eres with no small amount of disgust.

Serana moves to her at once, a hand raising to inspect the cut at the side of Eres’ neck - the blood wells there sluggishly, hardly more than a few measly drops. The guard must have only just barely broken the skin when he’d jostled her. Still, Serana thinks, looking at him - she would be glad to kill him, just for daring to put his hands on her. He ought to be taught a lesson.

She turns on Ulfric then, half tempted to kill a few of his men just to prove a point. If she were more of a vampire and less of a human, she might have done it. But she is better than that. Eres believes she is better than that. And so she is.

“Is this how you treat your guests?”

Ulfric looks back at her, unbothered. “Depends on the guest.” He says, matter-of-factly. “Come with me. I assume you are here for a reason.” He turns, walking very casually away as if the hall had not been on the brink of an all out skirmish not minutes beforehand.

Serana stares at his back.

“What?” Eres asks, parroting Serana’s own thoughts.

The Jarl looks back at them. “You would not come here without a purpose. Whatever it is, we will discuss it away from prying ears. In private. Jorleif—remain here.”

“My Jarl, surely you don’t mean to be alone with them—”

“I believe I can handle two women, Jorleif,” Ulfric says flatly. “Now,” he says to the two of them, “follow me.”

Ulfric leads them to an adjoining hall, and then into a small room boasting nothing but what appeared to be a long table with a map stretched across it and several chairs scattered about it. In the corners of the room, there are chests of armor and shields and old blunted swords - it is not the most impressive war room Serana has ever seen.

Ulfric takes a seat in one of the chairs, and gestures to two more near the other end of the table. “Sit.” He orders.

“No.” Eres responds, almost automatically. Serana does not sit either, because Eres does not.

Ulfric merely raises a brow. “Is it in your nature to be contrary, or do you just enjoy it?”

Had the comment come from anyone other than a man whose guard had just injured Eres, Serana might have made a joke of it. Eres _is_ contrary, and Serana has never known her to be anything but. In the moment, the comment is not funny at all. It seems at once too casual and too familiar, like Ulfric speaks to them as casual acquaintances rather than enemies.

Judging by Eres’ grimace, she does not particularly like it, either. “Is it in _your_ nature to be a racist asshat, or is that just something that makes you feel superior?”

“Eres,” Serana warns her, voice low. “We’ve already made a bad enough impression—”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Eres snaps at her. “You heard what he said.”

“I did.” Serana has to be careful, here. This isn’t exactly a subject she feels she has the right to speak on. It’s not _her_ people that Ulfric and his men have a problem with. She’s not the victim, here, and she can’t even pretend to know what it feels like. She understands why Eres would be upset, she does - it’s just that her being upset and voicing it aloud would only get them in trouble. And make it even less likely that Ulfric would be willing to listen. “But he did bring us back here. It shows he’s willing to listen, if nothing else.”

“Still a racist.”

“I am not a racist.” Ulfric interjects, voice carefully level. He seems oddly content simply to let them suss it out in front of him. “For the record.”

Eres lets out a bark of laughter. “I didn’t realize you were a comedian, too. Explain the Gray Quarter, then.”

Ulfric does not react outwardly to its mention. “I do not decide where they live. It is human nature to stick to one’s own kind. Should they choose to do so, who am I to stop them?”

Serana feels her own lip curl with disgust. “One’s own kind? They’re people, not creatures.”

Ulfric shrugs. “Where one chooses to lay their head at night is none of my concern.”

“This is _your_ city.” Eres tells him, incredulous. “Everything that happens here is your responsibility. Even your fucking steward is a racist, and you want to pretend like you don’t propagate it yourself?”

“I am responsible for no man’s actions but my own.” Ulfric says plainly. “I have no problem with your kind. My goal is to restore Skyrim to what it once was, nothing more. What Jorleif said to you was unfortunate. You are the Dragonborn. Had he known that—”

“Me being the Dragonborn shouldn’t have anything to do with it. He shouldn’t have said it even if I was a bloody street urchin.” Eres’ anger flashes in her eyes once more, sparked by the reminder of him. “He’s _your_ man. You think he would say such a thing if he didn’t believe in it? If he didn’t think _you_ believed in it? You’re just breeding ignorance.”

“So comes from the child of the Empire,” he says. “You are not so innocent yourself, Dragonborn. Falling for Imperial rhetoric. Believing we needed to be saved from ourselves. Would you feel the same way if it was Valenwood the Imperials invaded and claimed for their own? If they criminalized _your_ gods?”

Eres’ expression twists.

Serana says nothing. She had not said anything in the hall, and she would not say so now, in front of Ulfric - but at least privately, she would have admitted to have been surprised by Eres’ viciousness, then. By her sudden, unexpected defense of Imperialism, perhaps the first true sign Serana had ever seen that Eres had been born in the seat of privilege herself.

It was sometimes easy to forget that Eres was an Imperial—or at the very least, raised as one. She had the appearance of a Bosmer, she’d lived here in Skyrim for years - Serana had of course known Eres had grown up in the Empire, but she had heard little pride in it from Eres’ mouth. Eres rarely mentioned her childhood at all, and even in conversations where the Imperials had come up - she had separated them from herself, spoken of them from a distance.

Perhaps it had merely been a thoughtless, instinctual defense born of Eres’ own anger at being faced with such vileness. Perhaps Eres had meant only to match him in offenses, to lash out at Jorleif and strike him where it would hurt most. Perhaps she had only meant to attack his Nordic pride - but in doing so, she had lumped all of Skyrim as one. It was not a side of Eres that Serana could say she was familiar with.

But Serana watches her, and she can see Eres push down her anger. She can see the fire in her cool, doused by rationality, shoved down deep where it will not cause more problems.

“That was wrong of me to say,” Eres admits, and there is a moment where Serana is both surprised and immensely proud of her for admitting it in the presence of a man she so vehemently hates. “I let my temper get the better of me. The difference between me and your men, Ulfric,” Eres says evenly, “is that at least I recognize the wrong in what I say. Your men believe it to be true, and you do nothing to dissuade them.”

“What they believe in is none of my concern.”

“You’re fostering hate.” Eres tells him plainly. “That is the legacy you’ve built up. You might have started this Rebellion for the sake of religious freedom or whatever the hell you want to tell yourself. But that’s not what it is anymore. The criminalization of Talos is just a veneer the Rebels’ racism and xenophobia hides behind. It’s nothing more than plausible deniability for the _real_ thing they’re fighting for. They want us gone. Elves of all kinds, not just the Thalmor you claim to hate. They don’t differentiate between who they perceive as their enemy, and who just happen to look like them. And that’s a rot you’ve allowed to fester in your ranks, and now your entire cause reeks of it.”

Ulfric shakes his head. “I did not come here to debate philosophy with you, Dragonborn. Nor, I expect, did you. What is your true purpose here? Or do you mean simply to lecture me?”

“Lecturing you would get me nowhere.” Eres says. She opens her mouth for a second, then closes it, holding her tongue. Serana raises her brows, wondering what she might have said there that she had kept herself from saying. “But you’re right that I’m not here for that. There are bigger things going on right now. Bigger problems than you and this stupid war.”

“Call it stupid if you like.” Ulfric says. “Something tells me you would not be so dismissive if it were your people in our position.”

“Perhaps,” Eres admits. “But I wouldn’t be such a dick about it.”

“ _Eres_ ,” Serana sighs. “This isn’t how you ask for a favor.”

Eres crosses her arms. Ulfric raises a brow.

“Favor?” He asks. “What favor could you need of me, Dragonborn?”

It almost looks like it pains Eres to say it aloud. “I need you to attend a negotiation. With Tullius.”

Ulfric’s eyes darken. “To what end? Do you believe I will simply lay down and let my culture be taken from me?”

“This isn’t about your fucking culture, for gods’ sake.” Eres mutters. “This is about Alduin. Remember him? The dragon that wants to kill us all?” Ulfric nods. “He’s coming, and I have to stop him, or we’re all dead. But if I want to stop him, I need to find him first. Which means I need to capture one of his allies - one of the dragons under him. Dragonsreach could manage it.”

“And what does this have to do with me?”

“I’m _getting there._ Jarl Balgruuf won’t let me use Dragonsreach unless there’s a ceasefire. So,” Eres takes a breath. “I need you to come to High Hrothgar to negotiate a truce with Tullius. For now. Until Alduin is dealt with.”

“And why, pray tell,” Ulfric asks, leaning back in his seat, “would I ever agree to such a thing? We are winning this war. It will not be long until Whiterun is ours.”

“If you believe that,” Eres says, “you’re more of a fool than I thought. You think _this_ is the full strength of the Empire? The Empire has more legions in the plains around the capital than they do in all of Skyrim. If you think they can’t just crush you underfoot when they get bored of this, you’ve got another thing coming. And that’s not even counting the Thalmor.”

Ulfric gives her a look rife with skepticism. “If this were true, then your Empire has been letting their own men die for nothing. Why would they hold back against us?”

“Because they want a _resolution_ , not a genocide.” Eres sinks into one of the seats at last, seemingly tired of standing. Serana sits down beside her. It takes actual effort not to reach for her, in that room. “I might not be in the Army, but everyone who grows up in the Empire knows enough about how it works to tell you this. I just imagine no one’s ever gotten close enough to you to manage it.”

“The Empire isn’t _great_ ,” Eres admits. “But they’re not as evil as you think they are. If they were, they’d have let the Thalmor have free reign here. Who do you think is keeping them from just wiping you all out? The Empire’s been playing the middle man to try to handle this themselves, without involving them. Because they don’t want a full scale war. My guess,” Eres gestures with a hand towards the war table, where several markers are scattered across the table, “is that they’ve spread out across Skyrim into small battalions, hoping they might manage to cut off the head of the snake while leaving the body intact. I’m assuming you’ve had nothing but small skirmishes. Not actual battles against legions.”

Ulfric’s brow furrows, his lips pulling into a frown. He might not want to admit it, but even Serana knows that Eres is likely right. The Empire hadn’t become _The Empire_ for lack of military might.

“The head would be you,” Eres clarifies. “The body is Skyrim. If the Empire sent their full strength, they could have all of Skyrim occupied in days. But they’d have to expend a lot of resources to do it, and a lot of manpower. It would leave parts of Cyrodiil defenseless. It would also entail the Thalmor realizing that this Rebellion is not as minor as it seems, and might lead to them getting involved themselves. You think the Thalmor hunting squads are bad? You should see what they do en masse.”

“The point,” Eres says, “is that I know the Empire. My dad knew a lot of high ranking military men, and they never stop talking about war. What’s happened here in Skyrim is child’s play compared to what the Empire is capable of. If that weren’t the case, they wouldn’t be an _Empire_ to begin with. You’re just lucky they’ve been trying to deal with it quietly. This cease fire can be a step in the right direction.”

“You mean my surrender.” Ulfric’s lip curls. “That will never happen.”

“I mean a _compromise_ ,” Eres says. “You’re not going to win this war, Ulfric. That’s just the truth of it. But you _can_ get something out of it, if you play your cards right. This truce can open up a window into something more concrete. Maybe some kind of arrangement in regards to what territories you control, or — whatever the hell it is you want, I don’t know. But I only see this going a few ways.”

“One, you go ahead with these talks, and use it to get leverage you might not otherwise have towards accomplishing whatever your goals are here. Two: you keep fighting, until the point where the Imperials either quietly assassinate you, and your rebellion crumbles in the wake of your death, or three: they march on Windhelm in force and defeat you so utterly that your legacy will be no more than an embarrassment in the annals of history. It’s up to you.”

“If it helps with your pride, just pretend it’s some undercover operation to scam the Imperials out of shit they’d never give up otherwise. I don’t care what it takes to actually get you there. None of this will matter if we end up dying to Alduin in the end, anyway - so what do you have to lose?”

Serana does not expect Ulfric will agree to anything Eres has said. Whether or not she’s right doesn’t matter - a man like Ulfric would not be swayed by the impossibility of the odds stacked against him, Serana thinks. If he had considered the odds at all, he would not have murdered the High King and started the rebellion to begin with. Ulfric had to have known how unlikely it was that he would win from the onset.

“I will not surrender to Tullius.” Ulfric says. “But. I may use this truce to my advantage. Bolster our forces…”

As Serana had expected, it seems Eres’ speech had gone in one ear and out the other.

“It may be an opportunity to deal a blow against the Empire they can no longer ignore.” Ulfric smiles grimly. “You say the Thalmor will come? Let them come. They will only serve to prove me right, and then all of Skyrim will flock to my cause. The Empire cannot crush all of us - not without placing their own country in danger. You said so yourself.”

Eres drags a hand down her face, letting out a long sigh. “At this rate, you really will be no better than Forsworn by the end of this. Nothing but a bunch of crazed lunatics hiding out in the hills fighting for the glory of an old country that no longer exists.”

“Then at least me and mine will die with honor. Can you say the same, Imperial?”

Eres shakes her head, standing. “Do what you want. As long as you come to the negotiations so I can take care of Alduin - I don’t give a damn what else you do.”

At that, Ulfric lets out a dark chuckle. “Let us see if you say the same when Skyrim is under my banner.”

Serana’s eyes narrow at him. Eres does not miss the veiled threat, either. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Only that a reckoning will come.” Ulfric stands, looking down at her with a smugness about him that Serana hates. “And all shall be made right again. Including the impostor of a Dragonborn standing before me. The gods may have chosen you. I believe they have chosen incorrectly. We shall see which one of us is right, in the end.”

Eres only sends him a cold smile. “I am Ysmir,” she says to him lowly. “ _I_ am Talos Stormcrown’s successor. Whether you like it or not.”

Ulfric’s smug expression does not falter in the slightest.

“Heavy lies the crown, Dragonborn,” he says to her, as Eres turns to leave, Serana at her heels. “Careful you are not crushed beneath it.”

* * *

“That went well.”

Serana looks at her, incredulous - and is met with a look of wry amusement.

“Well,” she says, shaking her head. “I suppose it could have gone worse.”

Much worse. Serana reaches to touch at the wound on Eres’ neck, barely more than a nick. The blood has long since dried, now, but the sight of it is a reminder of just how very close it had come to blows in there. Eres could have gotten herself killed in that little exchange.

“Why don’t you let me do the talking the next time we have to convince Ulfric of something?”

At that, Eres makes a face. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’ll be glad to never have to see him again after this.”

Eres pulls the hood of her cloak back over her head, tugging it forward so that it covers the pointed tips of her ears as well. Here in Windhelm, even just the act of walking around the city with noticeable elven features might garner them more trouble than they wanted to deal with, just now.

Serana will be glad to be free of this city. “If we hurry, we might be able to spend the night in Kynesgrove instead of Windhelm before this storm kicks up.”

Eres looks up to the sky, frowning. It is just a few hours past midday, and already the skies have begun to darken with cloud cover. A heavy snowfall is coming, Serana would bet on it. She would rather be well out of Windhelm before they have this misfortune to get trapped in a blizzard here, of all places.

Then, suddenly, Eres turns, spinning, her brow furrowing deeply as she looks somewhere to the north of them, past the palace—and somewhere beyond it.

“Eres?”

Eres looks at her, eyes dark with worry. “Is it just me, or do you feel that too?”

“…Feel what?” Serana almost doesn’t want to ask. The last time Eres had gotten a _sense_ of things that Serana couldn’t, it had been when Fellburg was attacked. That was not even mentioning how worrisome it was for Eres to be sensing such things to begin with, knowing it could be related to her condition.

“Something…” Eres’ face twists. “I don’t know. Something off.”

“Does it feel like before?” Eres glances at her. “When you thought something had happened to Fellburg? Do you think it’s Alduin?”

“No,” Eres says, and she looks as surprised at that as Serana feels. “It’s not that. It doesn’t feel… like him. It feels like…” Eres shifts uneasily, her eyes searching again for something Serana cannot see or feel or hear. “It feels like magic. And a _lot_ of it.”

“ _Here_?” Serana looks at the palace, doubtful. In a place so high on Nordic tradition, she would doubt they had anything too magical in nature there, unless Ulfric was hiding a lot more than he let on. She supposes it is possible, though not likely.

“No, north of here.” But Eres shakes her head. “Maybe it’s something at Winterhold. They do experiments all the time.”

And just like that, she turns, and she is walking away from the palace courtyard and towards the city proper.

But Serana cannot discount it so easily.

What kind of experimentation at Winterhold could release so much power that Eres would be able to sense it in _Windhelm_? More to that end, if it was that powerful, if there was _that_ much mana involved - why couldn’t Serana sense it herself? Would Auria have been able to sense it, if she was here? Could it be something Eres is simply more aware of due to her nature as Bosmer, or was it that whatever she sensed could only be sensed by _her_ , specifically?

That is what Serana fears most - that whatever it is has something to do more with Eres’ condition than any kind of experimentation the College might be up to. Mirabelle _had_ said they were doing research on the Oghma Infinium - was it possible something had gone terribly wrong there? Had they tried to access the book and been assaulted with the same magic that might have led to Septimus’ death?

Or, Serana considers, following after her, it could be something else entirely. The College would be no stranger to experimentation in general, not just with the Oghma Infinium. They did have, after all, all three of the Elder Scrolls she and Eres had tracked down. It was more than possible that there could be multiple things the College is up to behind closed doors that could cause a strong enough disturbance that Eres would sense it.

The question is, how much of that disturbance is something they need to worry about? And what does it mean, in the end, that Eres can sense it? Serana does not want to think that it may be a progression of her condition, that perhaps her awareness has expanded even further beyond what it had been previously.

That first time in the courtyard at the Temple of Stendarr, Serana had assumed it was some leftover sixth-sense from Eres’ mantling of Shezarr in Coldharbour - that maybe there was some piece of Eres, deep down, that was still infected with that seed of divinity, even here in Nirn. Now she has to wonder if perhaps that had never truly gone away.

They know her condition is related to Coldharbour, and of her memories of it. They know, too, that the mantling and the dragon breaks and Eres’ lost memories of both are the reason why she is on the verge of being consumed - if, of course, Hermaeus Mora could be trusted at all. In most things, Serana would not take him at his word.

In this, Serana is not sure there is any other explanation for it. Hermaeus’ proposed theory for Eres’ condition made _sense_ , even if she did not like it. And so far, keeping Eres in the dark about the true nature of her condition had seemed to work. Or, at the very least, it had not made matters worse.

But how much control could they have over the progression of her condition? There were plenty of outside factors that could influence her. Plenty of opportunities for Eres to remember things she otherwise would not have - like spending the night in an inn connected with her time at Altano’s side, back when Molag Bal had been pulling the strings behind the curtains.

Serana, suddenly, does not want to stay at Kynesgrove at all.

“Eres,” she says quickly. “Perhaps we should head for Ivarstead instead.”

“Ivarstead?” Eres looks back toward the sky, frowning, then back at her. “We’ll never make it that far before dark. We’ll end up in the marshes overnight.”

“Not if I run us there.” Serana tries to sound casual. Tries to make it sound like she is not avoiding Kynesgrove on purpose. Tries to not make it so that Eres will be suspicious of her intentions. “We can make it to Ivarstead by nightfall, and make the climb in the morning.”

Eres shifts on her feet, hesitating. Serana knows, just from looking at her, that she might just be able to convince her - Eres does not want to spend a night in Kynesgrove, either, and she certainly wouldn’t want to stay overnight in Windhelm.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Eres asks her. “Won’t you need time to hunt?”

“There are plenty of bandits in those parts,” Serana says easily. “I’ve definitely seen a few camps out in the marshes.”

Eres hums doubtfully. “I would offer, but you said you shouldn’t when you’re already hungry.”

Involuntarily, Serana’s eyes drop to the small cut on her neck. Yes, the scent of her blood in there had been more distracting than she’d like to admit. Thankfully the situation had been tense enough that she hadn’t been tempted, in the moment, but that did not mean she was not tempted now. There is a part of her that is not entirely opposed to making their way to Kynesgrove, where she and Eres could spend the night in a very different manner.

But Serana is not an idiot. If she fed from Eres now - whether it be in Kynesgrove or anywhere else - it would not stop at a feeding. And somehow, it seemed that Eres now was the one with misgivings instead of herself.

Serana is still _nervous_ , of course. How could she not be, about taking such a step with Eres? But she is also far more determined, far more in love than she is anxious, and the thought of losing her without ever having the chance of being able to express that love… Serana had spent a lot of time in that month that Eres had been asleep thinking of nothing but all the things she wished she could have done, all the time she had wasted, all the things she would no longer balk at if Eres was to wake again.

She has a second chance, here. Eres is awake and _alive_ , and Serana means to make the most of it while she can. She is nervous, yes, but more in the way of wondering if she will quite know what to do when the time comes, rather than being nervous for the act itself. That, as soon as Serana had spent several days mulling over it in her head, she had come to even anticipate.

She likely will never be free of the hesitance. Of the feeling that reaching for the things that she wants make her too much like the evil that had created her. But that is just the thing.

Molag Bal would not have hesitated. He would have taken Eres because he wanted her, and would never have questioned it.

The fact that Serana has spent the last several months torturing herself over the idea that she might be even a _little_ bit like him just for wanting her - that was proof enough that she is nothing like him. She just has to keep reminding herself of that, whenever the doubts come to mind again. And they do - often, she will admit.

But she had almost lost her. And she did not plan to live with that regret for the rest of her life, should Eres - should they not be able to save her.

So yes - there is a part of her that wants to throw caution to the wind, to go to Kynesgrove and enjoy what little time alone they will have before this summit. Perhaps a night alone would be no more than holding Eres as she sleeps. Perhaps it would be more. Serana would take either of them, if it meant spending more time with her.

But, reasonably speaking, she does prefer the idea of getting Eres as far away from whatever she had sensed as possible. And as far away from any influences of Altano as she could manage. If that meant spending the day running them down to Ivarstead and sacrificing a couple hours of her alone time to hunt before bedding down for the night, then so be it. If that is what it takes to keep Eres safe, she will be glad to do it.

“We’ll save that for a rainy day.” It’s only half a joke, if Serana is honest. When it comes down to it, she would rather they did not have a deadline and all sorts of political posturing to worry about, whenever they finally do get a chance to - have time alone. Unfortunately, she gets the feeling that won’t happen any time soon.

Eres snorts at that, shaking her head. “Ivarstead is better than Kynesgrove, at least,” she admits. With a glance to the sky, she adds, “And I’m not sure this storm isn’t going to get us stuck in Kynesgrove, either.”

“I knew you’d see it my way.” Serana steps closer, arms outstretched to pull her into her arms, and Eres favors her with an unamused look. She and Eres may not have any time off anytime soon, but she could at least keep her away from _whatever_ was happening at Winterhold. Right now, keeping Eres safe and healthy is what she cares about most, not _that_.

“Don’t get used to carting me around like a sack of potatoes," Eres mutters.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

* * *

Eres is not surprised to see Arngeir waiting for her when they arrive at High Hrothgar. She is even less surprised to see Inigo hovering somewhere just behind him. He catches her eye and winces apologetically.

“Dragonborn.” Arngeir greets flatly, his expression as unimpressed as she has ever seen it. “Have you misunderstood our authority?” He asks. “The Greybeards have never involved themselves in political affairs. And yet, you do not even come to ask this favor of us yourself, but send a messenger to do your bidding. Are we but pawns to be arranged to your liking?”

Eres does not wince, herself, but she does feel just a little bit guilty. “I’m sorry for blindsiding you with this, Arngeir. But we are running on borrowed time, and I still needed to speak with Jarl Balgruuf and Ulfric. I didn’t have the time to return here myself. I had hoped that Inigo would explain the situation…”

“Inigo _tried_ ,” Inigo hisses from across the room. Arngeir does not so much as glance in his direction.

Eres sighs. Inigo is a good friend, and unendingly loyal - but she has a feeling that there are more than a few people who find it difficult to take him seriously. Arngeir, as stodgy as he tends to be, would be no exception.

“Jarl Balgruuf won’t help me while the war rages. It would be too dangerous to trap a dragon there without a ceasefire - or so he says, anyways. I had to find some way to arrange a negotiation between the two sides. High Hrothgar is neutral ground, and sacred to the Nords besides. They wouldn’t dare shed blood on these grounds, and that’s what we need.”

“I see.” Arngeir folds his hands within his robes, his lips tugging ever downward. “The dragon will lead you to Alduin, but without the Jarl’s help…”

“We can’t manage it without him. Both sides respect the Greybeards.” She hopes, anyways. Delphine hadn’t even been sure of that. “They will listen.”

Arngeir looks as doubtful of that as she feels. All the same, he sighs with resignation, and nods. “Paarthurnax has made the decision to help you. This is the path we have to walk. Even the Greybeards must bend to the winds of change it seems. Have you sent word of this summit’s timing?”

“Not yet,” Eres admits. “I had to make sure Ulfric would come, first. And I wanted to make sure High Hrothgar would be ready to receive them.”

At that, there is a flicker of amusement in Arngeir’s eyes. “Or,” he says mildly, “you wished to be sure we would agree.”

“That too,” Eres admits sheepishly.

“So be it.” Arngeir sends her the smallest of fleeting smiles, as if to assure her that he is not truly angry. Perhaps he had simply been exasperated with her tendency to dive headfirst into things without checking for approval first. She is at least grateful she had not truly offended him. Had she done so, it would only have made the summit that much more difficult without Arngeir and the other monks on her side. “Tell Ulfric and General Tullius that the Greybeards wish to speak with them. We will see if they still remember us.”

Eres nods hurriedly, reaching absently behind her for Serana’s hand. It joins with hers naturally, cool to the touch, and she tugs it along behind her as she moves towards the private wing.

“Inigo _did_ try,” Inigo says as he falls in step with her. “But he was upset you did not come yourself.”

“I noticed.” Eres sighs, feeling tension in her shoulders. What she wouldn’t do for a long, hot bath. Ivarstead had been sorely lacking in such comforts. “I thought Delphine and Esbern would be here already.”

“Oh, they are,” Inigo confirms. “But Esbern is in the archives. Lots of stuffy old tomes and scrolls, you know. Delphine keeps him company. Or,” he shrugs helplessly, “perhaps it is that she keeps him from stealing things. Inigo has not asked.”

Given Esbern’s obsession with history and dragonlore especially, Eres could not say she would be surprised if that was the case. Esbern didn’t necessarily strike her as a thief, per se, but she could certainly see him making off with historical documents for the purpose of “research”, if he thought he could get away with it.

“That’s one way to avoid the Greybeards, I suppose,” Serana says. “Can’t say I’m not surprised Arngeir wasn’t mad about them, too.”

Inigo grins. “There were several shouting matches before you arrived. I think they got all of it out before you got here.”

Eres raises a brow. “ _Shouting_ matches?”

“The normal shouting,” Inigo clarifies. “Loud talking, not dragon talking.”

Color her surprised, then - she’d half expected them to come to blows if left in the same room, as much as the Blades and the Greybeards seemed to hate each other on principle.

Eres arrives at the door for her own room - or rather, the room she and Serana have been occupying since the private wing had first been opened for them - and Inigo stops at the doorway.

“You know,” Inigo starts, and as soon as Eres sees his smile, she knows he’s going to say something dirty. “Inigo can keep the others away, if you would like some time alone.” He winks. “It will take several days for the others to arrive, after all… I am sure you have much to catch up on still, no?”

Serana sighs. “Get out, Inigo.”

“Gladly.” Inigo bows with a flourish. “Perhaps you will be less grumpy after, hm?”

Serana raises her hand as if to toss a spike at him, and the cat dances off down the hall with a cackle. When he is well out of earshot, Serana turns to her with a dry look. “He does this because you let him get away with it, you know.”

Eres laughs. “There’s no harm in it.”

“There’s _going_ to be harm in it,” Serana mutters.

Eres hushes her, entering the room, and starts to remove her bag and cloak. “You’re not going to hurt him. He just likes getting on your nerves.”

“You misunderstand,” Serana says lightly. She takes Eres’ cloak from her, hanging it on the wall near the door. “That’s why I want to hurt him.”

Eres sits to unlace her boots, determined to have a bath before she starts drafting up letters to Ulfric and Balgruuf. And thinking about who will even deliver them, all the way up here. Do the Greybeards have a courier who visits them? What was the one man’s name who came to bring them supplies every few days? She’d met him once. Clifford? Kennen?

 _Klimmek_ was his name wasn't it? Maybe she could convince him to take a few letters down to Ivarstead's post the next time he made the climb up. Or she'll have to send Serana down, she supposes. She's sure as hell not climbing the mountain again any time soon.

Then again, perhaps she should - she's out of shape enough as it is. She would hate every second of it and probably regret it before the hundredth step, but it would be worth it in the end if she could regain some of her strength. 

Serana kneels to help her, and feeling a bit impish, Eres leans back in her seat and waits for Serana to notice. 

It takes only a few seconds for the woman to look up at her, unimpressed. “I was _helping_ , not doing it for you.”

Eres sends Serana her very sweetest smile. “You just offered so nicely.”

Serana tugs the boot off just a tad harder than necessary, just to make a point of it. Eres mimes a kiss at her, and laughs when Serana merely raises a brow in return.

“What’s got you in such a good mood suddenly?”

“Honestly, I think I have so much to be stressed about that my brain just gave up on processing it for the moment.” It’s partially true, at least. She does feel a bit giddy, but in the ‘ _haha I_ _’m losing it’_ kind of way. She’ll blame the high altitude, if anyone else asks.

“Oh? Processing things now, are we? What progress we’ve made.”

“Oh, shut up.” Eres kicks at her stomach, just to drive the point home. It's hardly more than a tap at best, but it gets the point across: Yes, she _knows_ she’s bad at that. That’s neither here nor there.

“Hurry up, I want a bath.” She says it just to annoy her a bit, just to make absolutely certain the subject is changed - she's going to take advantage of this good mood while she has it, thank you very much. 

“I’m going to throw you in there with your clothes on at this rate.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Serana glances up at her, and there is not a shred of hesitance in those eyes. Maybe she would. Who is she kidding, it's _Serana_ \- she _definitely_ would. “Alright, hey - that wasn’t a challenge.”

Serana tugs off the other boot, tossing it to the floor. “You sure? Sure sounded like one.”

Oh, she does _not_ like that smirk on her face. “Don’t you even think about it—”

If, somewhere down the hall, Inigo hears a yelp followed by a splash, he pays it no mind. Whatever Eres and Serana get up to behind closed doors is none of _his_ business—at least not until he wants to tease them about it, that is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they stoopit


	22. Season Unending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chug-a-chuggin' right along
> 
> edit: damnit i thought we'd break 200k with this one lol so close

Eres is going to wear a hole in the floor, at this rate.

Serana watches as the girl paces from one end of their room to the next, torn between mild fascination and active worry. Since sending the letters to both Ulfric and Jarl Balgruuf, Eres has spent the last several days working alongside the Greybeards to prepare for the arrival of their long-awaited guests - who, according to Inigo, have now started to arrive.

The Stormcloaks, under Ulfric’s banner, had unsurprisingly arrived first, given that they had far less ground to cover than those coming from Solitude. Eres had met with them briefly, if only to show proper hospitality, and they had been led to one end of High Hrothgar where they would await the commencement of the summit itself. Just this morning, with the aid of the Greybeards calling for clearer skies, Inigo had spotted the approach of the Imperials up the mountainside. They would be arriving any minute now, and soon after that, the negotiations would begin at last.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Really, Eres is going to make herself dizzy at this rate.

Eres shakes her head. “I can’t sit down.” She does however, stop pacing for a moment, wringing her hands together. “What if they can’t come to an agreement? What do we do then?”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” Serana might have offered her comfort, if she thought Eres could sit still long enough to accept it. She had tried earlier that morning, and hadn’t been any measure of successful. “We will figure this out, Eres.”

Eres sighs. She starts to pace all over again.

Maybe a distraction is in order. Maybe something to take her mind off what is to come. Not that Serana has a grand list of things she can think of to talk about just now, but there is at least one thing she has been wondering.

“Have you sensed anything else from Winterhold?”

“Hm?” Eres glances at her, confused and plainly distracted. “Oh, no. I told you it was probably an experiment. We can ask Mirabelle when we go back home.” She makes a face then. “ _If_ we go back home, I suppose.”

“Eres, don’t talk like that.”

Eres blinks. “I didn’t mean—I meant, if we manage this, we’ll probably be heading straight for Whiterun. We won’t have time to stop at Fellburg.”

“Oh.” Serana nods. “That’s fair, I suppose.” Though she almost wishes that wasn’t the case. Eres is nothing short of frazzled, lately, and it can’t be good for her health. A good few days of rest and relaxation would be just the thing she needed. But, with Alduin hanging over their heads… She knows Eres isn’t likely to take time off any time soon, and even if she did, she would spend the entire time stressing over it, anyways. It will have to wait.

“Have you thought about what you want to do when this is over?”

Eres sends her a dubious look. “Are you trying to distract me?”

“Is it working?”

Eres’ pacing does slow, just a bit. “Maybe?” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought of it.” There is a flash of something in her eyes then, and Serana hates that she doesn’t have to ask what it is.

She knows why Eres has not thought of what she will do after Alduin. She knows, and every time she thinks of it, her heart sinks a little lower.

Eres hasn’t thought of what she will do after because she doesn’t think she will survive it.

Serana refuses to even consider that as a possibility. Eres _will_ survive it, one way or another. And once Alduin is finished, they will—they will do something. She doesn’t know what, just yet, but they will do something that doesn’t involve world-ending prophecies and life-or-death battles. Something lighthearted. Something relaxing. Something like a vacation, maybe.

“We should go somewhere.” Serana suggests. “Other than Skyrim, I mean. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Imperial City.”

Eres makes a face. She does at least stop pacing, however. “There’s not that much to see there. Unless you count dirty streets and a bunch of stuffy old nobles.”

“Well, there’s your old home.” Eres scrunches her nose at that. “What? I’d like to see it.”

“It’s probably been sold off to someone by now. Or condemned.” Eres shrugs helplessly. “They took it after he died to pay off his debts. Pretty sure there’s nothing left in it from when we lived there, anymore. It wouldn’t be that interesting. Certainly not worth a trip to Cyrodiil.”

“You never know.” Serana shrugs, herself. She still kind of wants to see it. Where _did_ Eres grow up? Would there be people around there who’d known her as a child? People besides Claude, for example. She might like to hear about what Eres was like as a child, if it was from anyone other than him. “Or we could - I don’t know. Go somewhere else, maybe. Anywhere. You’ve mentioned you wanted to see Valenwood before.”

Eres shifts on her feet. Finally, she sits. “Auria would probably want to come if we went there.”

“Who says we have to tell her we’re going?”

Eres favors her with a wry look at that. “As if we’d be able to hide it from her. She’d find out somehow.”

“We could ditch her on the way. Fairly certain I can run faster than she can.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” Serana admits. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had about enough of Skyrim and saving the world. I think it’s time we do something fun for a change.”

“Your idea of fun is a fully stocked library.”

“And I am _correct_ ,” Serana retorts primly. “But there are libraries everywhere. Anywhere you want to go after this. Name a place and I’ll make sure we get there.”

Eres smiles at her then, but it does not quite reach her eyes. It is a smile she wears for Serana’s sake rather than her own.

“Anywhere,” Eres’ voice is light, too-casual for the faraway, wistful look in her eyes. “Anywhere, as long as you’re with me.”

“Promise me.”

Perhaps it is cruel to ask her that. Perhaps it is cruel to hold Eres to swear by it, just for her own comfort. To make Eres commit to it, to make it so that she will have to plan for a future. To make her accept that she has a future to begin with.

In Serana’s mind, she does. She just has to make Eres believe it.

But Eres’ soft smile falters. She looks away, rising to her feet again. “I can’t promise you that.”

“Eres—”

Eres looks at her, and though her expression is unreadable, her eyes are not. In them, Serana sees her acceptance. Her acceptance of a fate that she believes she’s destined to have. Her acceptance of a death that Eres feels is inevitable. And a pity, almost. A pity for _her_ —for Serana, for not understanding it. For not accepting it the way that Eres has.

“I won’t make you a promise I don’t know I can keep.” Eres looks toward the door. “Someone’s coming.”

Serana stands, reaching to grasp her hand, to pull her back, to make Eres understand that she is not giving up on her, even if she has given up on herself.

But there is a knock at the door, and Eres pulls away from her to answer it, and the distance between them feels like the earth has split under their very feet and a great, unknowable chasm sits between them, where Eres is on one side and Serana is on the other and there is nothing she can do to reach her.

The door opens, and Arngeir is there, hands folded into his robe. The expression he wears is tight around the edges, as though he must work to keep such neutrality upon his face.

“So, here we are.” Arngeir’s voice rings low and somber in the emptiness of the hallway just outside their door. “The men of violence are gathered here, in these halls whose very stones are dedicated to peace.”

Arngeir shakes his head, his mouth pressing into a thin line. “I should not have agreed to host this council. The Greybeards have no business involving ourselves in such matters.”

Eres meets him with such confidence that she might have swayed the wind not to blow. “I’ll make them agree to peace, Arngeir. One way or another.”

“Peace?” Arngeir chuckles mirthlessly. “I doubt it. They may put their weapons down for the moment, but only to gather their strength for the next bloodletting. They are not yet tired of war. Far from it.”

Arngeir turns, beckoning them to follow with a jerk of his chin. Eres follows without hesitation. Serana cannot say she does the same.

“Do you know the ancient Nord word for war?” Arngeir asks them as they walk. “ _Season Unending._ And so it has proved.”

As Serana falls into step with them, Eres looks far ahead. Far past the end of the hallway. Far past anything either of them can see. “Everything ends, Arngeir. Even war.”

Serana swallows. A tightness cinches around her throat. Eres does not have to say it. Serana hears it all the same.

 _Everything ends, Arngeir. Even war. Even me._

“We shall see if that proves true. For your sake,” Arngeir says, turning down another long hall. “I can only hope that it does. I suppose we must not waste time regretting our choices now. Now, we must live with them. And look forward to whatever our future may hold.”

Arngeir stops, just outside a set of double doors that Serana has never been inside. She cannot say she particularly cares for what’s behind them, just now. How can she worry for the outcome of a summit when Eres has so readily accepted her own death? Serana will never accept it. _Never._ They’ll find a way.

They have to.

“Here we are.” Arngeir murmurs. He looks at Eres with some measure of trepidation. “Are you ready, Dragonborn?”

Eres takes a long, steadying breath, and lets it all out at once. “As ready as I can be.”

“Very well.” Arngeir reaches for the handle. “Let us see what wisdom we can find among these warriors of Skyrim.” He pulls the door open, and gestures inside.

There are more people in this one room than Serana has ever seen in all of High Hrothgar.

The room, for the most part, is bare, aside from a long, ovular stone table that curls around a roaring hearth in the very center of the room. Against the walls, torch sconces throwing flickering, warm light against cold grey stone. There are more seats arranged around the table than Serana had expected, and still, all remain standing on their respective sides, and there are too many within this small, cramped room to sit beside their peers. Tankards of ale and long, wooden plates piled with hard, thin slices of bread and cheeses and cured meats stretches across each side, enough so that each person sitting can easily reach for it if they so wished. It does not look like anyone has bothered. 

More tellingly, none of them have taken their seats. If they had, they had all risen as soon as Eres had entered the room. More and more, Serana is realizing that Eres commands more respect than she knows. Perhaps even more than Eres realizes, herself.

At the left side of the table, Serana sees Ulfric, the same burly man she had seen speaking to him on the throne, and several other Stormcloak warriors she has never seen or met, hovering just behind them. Jorleif is suspiciously missing. Delphine and Esbern stand two of the other seats on that side, closest to the door, looking none too pleased to be there.

At the right, there is - Serana must restrain her immediate reaction - _Elenwen_ , sitting just near the door. She is, in fact, the only person who does not stand. The Aldmeri woman glances casually in their direction and sends them both a cold, knowing smile. She even waves, raising a hand to wiggle her fingers in their direction.

She knows _,_ Serana realizes. She knows they were the ones to infiltrate the embassy. Of course she would know. And now she’s here. In the very last place they would have expected her to be.

Beside her, there is a man Serana can only assume is Tullius, from his age and decorated Legion armor. At his right is the Jarl Elisif, Serana thinks. Serana has never met the woman, but she cannot imagine anyone else who would have come to High Hrothgar in such noble finery. Another legate stands just behind the two of them, female but armed to the teeth. She has not even seen fit to remove her helmet, whoever she might be.

Then, there are two people standing just behind Tullius and the Jarl. Two people that brings Serana even more pause than Elenwen.

A pair of sharp green eyes meets her own. His expression remains carefully neutral, even as his jaw tightens at the sight of them. He gives her a near imperceptible shake of his head, and his gaze flickers to the broad-shouldered man beside him.

Serana had only seen this man once, and from across the room at the embassy. She had not gotten an especially good look at the man then, but she could not possibly mistake him for anyone else.

General Romulus. The very same man Claude had said would have a vested interest in Eres. The very same man he’d claimed had wanted Eres’ father dead.

The very same man who now looks at them, at Eres, who now allows a small, satisfied smile to grow upon his lips.

Eres moves into the room. Serana follows, and in the shadows thrown against the wall by the flickering sconces upon the walls, Serana brushes a finger against the back of her hand in a silent bid for her attention.

Eres glances at her, and in that fleeting glance, Serana sees the same knowing that she feels in herself.

Eres remembers him, too. Just as he remembers _her._

Only when Eres herself is seated at the furthest end of the table does Arngeir address those gathered before them.

“Now that the Dragonborn has arrived, we may begin. Please take your seats. I hope that we have all come here in the spirit of—”

“Clearly not.” Ulfric scoffs, sending a dark look first across the table, then in Eres’ direction. “You insult us by bringing her to this negotiation? Your chief Talos hunter?”

Beside her, Eres closes her eyes with a sigh. Serana sees tension travel down from her head to her neck to her shoulders to all of her, until Eres is as rigid as if she were made of the same stone as the very temple they sat in. The negotiations have not even begun, and already they are going poorly.

“That didn’t take long,” the female Imperial mutters under her breath.

Jarl Balgruuf shakes his head. “Diplomatic as usual…”

Elenwen purses her lips. “I have every right to be at this negotiation. I need to ensure that nothing is agreed to here that violates the terms of the White-Gold Concordat.”

“She’s part of the Imperial delegation. You can’t dictate who I bring to this council.” General Tullius adds, crossing his arms over the broad chest of his decorated Imperial armor. Gold is inlaid around the edges of it, glinting in the flickering light of the hearth. The cloak settled around his shoulders is that of fine, heavy red silk. By contrast, the Legate behind him wears her armor plainly, though the red plume of her helmet draws more attention than it does not. Claude and Romulus wear no armor at all, or if they do, it is not visible beneath their somewhat formal finery, matching doublets of black brocade and modest trimmings in Imperial crimson. 

“Please,” Arngeir says. “If we have to negotiate the terms of the negotiation, we will never get anywhere. Perhaps this would be a good time to get the Dragonborn’s input on this matter.”

“By Ysmir’s beard, the nerve of these Imperials,” Ulfric mutters. He fixes Eres with a hard stare. “To think that I would sit down at the same table as that Thalmor bitch. Either she walks, or I do.”

Eres heaves a long sigh, pinching at the bridge of her nose. “This is ridiculous.”

“You’re right,” Tullius agrees. “It _is_ ridiculous to expect us to—”

“Stop.” Eres orders, and to Serana’s infinite surprise, he does. Tullius presses his lips together, frowning, his brow deeply furrowed. “In the spirit of at least _attempting_ to facilitate a proper negotiation - Elenwen,” she says, and looks at her, “please exit the room.”

When Elenwen opens her mouth to protest, rising from her seat, Eres holds up a hand.

“This does not mean that you are barred from going over the terms of the negotiation once they have been agreed upon. I only ask that you leave the room, as your presence here will breed tension that will complicate an already difficult negotiation. It will be easier to arrive at agreeable terms for both parties if there is a show of good faith and meeting on equal ground, rather than adding more tensions on top of those that already exist.”

“The negotiations,” Eres turns to address the rest of them, “will proceed once Elenwen has left the room. Both parties will have the opportunity to speak their peace and lay out the terms of their respective conciliation. I expect those terms to be reasonable and fair. When both parties have agreed upon these terms, the treaty will be drafted,” Elenwen’s expression darkens, and Eres looks again at her, meeting her scornful gaze head on. “At which point Elenwen may review the terms of the negotiation to ensure that none of the terms agreed upon violate the existing White-Gold Concordat.”

Tullius leans back in his seat, nodding to himself. Jarl Ulfric’s expression twists with disgust.

“In addition,” Eres adds, “Elenwen - if you are to take issue with any point of the treaty, it must _actually_ violate the Concordat. Keep in mind that I am an Imperial citizen, and thus am familiar with its decrees. I will know if you are raising issues for the sole purpose of creating conflict. You may be the Thalmor ambassador to Skyrim, but this is _my_ summit. If you cannot agree to these terms, you will be removed entirely.”

Eres sweeps her gaze across them all. “Have I made myself clear?”

Ulfric shifts in his seat, grimacing, but he nods reluctantly. “That is agreeable,” he mutters. “It is better than nothing, I suppose.”

“Fine by me.” Tullius says. He looks to Elenwen. “Do you think you can manage to humble yourself for the sake of these negotiations, Elenwen?”

Elenwen sneers at him. Her eyes flit then to Serana, and Eres beside her. “In the spirit of cooperation,” she says carefully slowly, a cold smile upon her lips, “I will agree to these terms as well. However,” she warns, “you should make it a point not to make yourself more an enemy of the Dominion than you already have, my sweet. If you continue to forget your place in this world, we will be more than willing to remind you of it.”

Eres’ returning smile is even colder than Elenwen’s. “Should that time come, we will see which of us is reminded of their place. You are excused, Elenwen.”

Ulfric snorts. The burly man beside him outright laughs in the woman’s face. Elenwen, however, only smiles coldly in response. Serana does not miss the glance she shares with Romulus on her way out. She would bet that Romulus will report anything that goes on within this room. There must be some kind of connection between Elenwen and him. All the more reason to be wary of him. 

“Now that that’s settled,” Arngeir sighs. “May we now proceed?”

Ulfric shakes his head. “I have something to say first. The only reason I agreed to attend this council was to deal with the dragon menace. There’s nothing else to talk about. Unless the Empire is finally ready to renounce its unjust claim to rule over the free people of Skyrim.”

Serana rolls her eyes. _This_ idiot is going to be impossible to deal with, she just knows it. Eres’ patience is already wearing thin with him, she can tell. So too, is her own. What she wouldn't give to knock him down a few notches after his display in Windhelm. She had not missed the veiled threat he had made towards Eres. 

“We are here to arrange a temporary truce to allow the Dragonborn to deal with the dragons. Nothing more. I consider even talking to the Empire a generous gesture.”

“Are you done?” Tullius asks. “Did you just come here to make speeches, or can we get down to business?”

Ulfric smirks. “Yes. Let’s get this over with.”

“Very well.” Arngeir gives a little shake of his head. Frustration brims behind his eyes, the very same frustration that Serana can see in Eres’.

“General Tullius. Jarl Ulfric. This council is unprecedented. We are gathered here at the Dragonborn’s request. I ask that you all respect the spirit of High Hrothgar, and do your best to begin the process of achieving a lasting peace for Skyrim. Jarl Ulfric - if you would care to begin. Please lay out the terms of your agreement.”

“We want control of Markarth.” Ulfric says bluntly. “That’s our price for agreeing to a truce.”

Jarl Elisif scoffs, speaking for the first time. “So that’s why you’re here, Ulfric? You dare to insult the Greybeards by using this Council to advance your own position?”

“Jarl Elisif—”

“General, this is outrageous! You can’t be taking this demand seriously! I thought we were here to discuss a _truce_ , not a surrender.”

Serana raises her brows, surprised by the woman’s unexpected fiery outburst. She had not expected the woman to be so strongly opinionated about the war itself. Her dead husband, perhaps, but the terms of a war treaty - no. Perhaps there is more to her than what she has been told.

“Elisif! I said I’d handle it.” Tullius turns to Ulfric. “Ulfric, you can’t seriously expect us to give up Markarth at the negotiating table. You hope to gain in council what you’ve been unable to take in battle, is that it?”

“I am sure Jarl Ulfric does not expect something for nothing,” Arngeir intervenes reasonably.

“Yes,” the Imperial woman drawls. “That’d be entirely out of character.”

Arngeir ignores the quip, favoring the woman with nothing but a quick, disdainful glance. “What would the Empire ask for in return?”

“Wait,” Jarl Elisif’s scowl deepens. “General, you don’t intend to just hand over Markarth to that traitor!”

“This is how the Empire repays us for our loyalty?” Balgruuf asks tightly. Serana looks at him, and already knows what he is thinking. If the Empire would agree to give up Markarth, how quickly would they agree to relinquishing Whiterun to Rebel control as well, if the terms favored it?

“Enough! First,” Tullius says grimly, “let’s be clear. This council wasn’t my idea. I think it’s a waste of time. You are a traitor to the Empire, and deserve a traitor’s death. I at least will negotiate in good faith.”

Eres leans back in her seat with a sigh, watching as the negotiations devolve into little more than snide comments and derision. The rigidity of hard, cold anger settles into her form, a simmering, building fury in her eyes. What little patience Eres had remaining is wearing dangerously thin, and fast.

Serana almost reaches for her, but it is Eres who beats her to the punch. Eres who grasps at her hand beneath the table, threading their fingers together, squeezing her hand so tightly that it is almost painful. If Serana listens, listens beneath the incessant bickering of grown men acting like children - she can hear the steady increase in the rate of Eres’ heartbeat, the way her breath has deepened. The way that Serana can feel the slight tremble in the hand held in her own.

Eres isn’t just frustrated or impatient. She’s fucking furious, and barely holding it in.

With every minute that passes, with every jibe that Tullius and Ulfric and their respective companions fling at each other across the table, with every term proposed and shot down without thought by the other side, with each scoff and sneer and condescending remark, Serana hears Eres’ heartrate rise. It rises until it is racing in her chest as though adrenaline pumps through her very veins, until Serana can almost see it bounding in her neck, until Eres’ cheeks redden with the heat of it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Serana sees Claude straighten, his brow furrowing as his eyes fix upon Eres as well. He does not have the senses that she does, does not have the racing heart and deep, steadying breaths to go off of - but he sees Eres’ anger all the same, it seems, and his face twists with what seems as a physical effort to restrain himself from speaking out of turn.

After a moment, he settles, though his eyes continue to flit to Eres on occasion, a deep trepidation in his eyes that speaks volume of how well he knows Eres, as much as Serana would never like to acknowledge it.

He knows, as well as she does, that Eres is on the verge of losing the battle with her temper. And there is no telling what may happen after that.

Serana does not know how to comfort her here, how to drain the tension from her and ease the anger out of her. Were they in private, Serana could have pulled her into her arms, distracted her, spoken to her of silly, light hearted things until the anger left her, until Eres’ focus shifted, until she would relax, until that tight coil of fury inside her would unravel to something more manageable.

Here, in the middle of a negotiation with several of the most powerful people in Skyrim, Serana has little idea of how she might be able to pull Eres from it. She tries to clasp Eres’ hand in both of her own, tries to massage the tension from her hand - but it does nothing for the rest of Eres, wound up tight and poised to explode at any moment.

In Eres’ defense - it takes well over an hour for her to finally lose the battle with her temper. She lasts much longer than Serana had even hoped she would. In fact, it is not until both Tullius and Ulfric rise from their seats to shout at each other about how impractical and unfair each of their proposals for treaty terms are that Eres snaps at last.

Serana sees it the moment it boils over. It starts in the eyes, the simmering behind her gaze erupting into scalding, liquid heat. It ripples through the rest of her, drawing the tension about her person ever tighter, undoing what little progress Serana had made in a single instant, and the hand held between her own clenches into a hard fist - and yanks away from her own as Eres’ brow snaps down, as she leaps from her own seat and slams her hands upon the table so hard that Serana swears that _she_ can feel its impact.

“ ** _Enough!_** ” Serana winces, snapping a hand to her ear as Eres’ voice cracks across the room like a clap of violent thunder.

The room stills. For a moment, it feels as though not a single soul so much as breathes in the face of Eres’ anger.

“Sit. _Down_.”

Serana’s brows jump high, watching as Ulfric drops at once back into his seat like a scolded child, his expression a mix of surprise and consternation. Tullius sinks into his own seat, looking at Eres with some measure of muted awe. He had not seen the power of the Dragonborn for himself before now. Perhaps he had not even believed in it, until now.

Eres’ eyes pin the both of them to their seats, dark with fury, and Serana cannot look away from her - from the terrifying beauty she sees in her, then. From the art of her anger.

“This is not a game.” Eres starts. Her voice is carefully level in the way that sounds like a dam on the verge of breaking, like the audible tension in a bridge right before it snaps and crumbles away. “I don’t care which cities you trade. I don’t care what outposts you man, or concessions you grant - I don’t care. About _any_ of this. Because it doesn’t _m_ _atter._ ”

Eres swipes a hand across the surface of the table in front of her, spilling parchment and wine across dark stone. It hardly seems to cool the rage in her. If anything, it seems only to burn hotter in their cowed silence. Even Arngeir merely watches her, does not so much as speak a word against her.

“How stupid can you be? Do you think any of this will matter? Do you think this war will matter, when all the world is gone?” Eres asks them heatedly. “It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter who you are. Alduin will destroy all of it. There will be no Empire. There will be no Rebellion. There will be _nothing left._ ”

“Do you understand that? _Nothing left._ Nothing, and _no one._ Millions of people will die. _Millions_ —because the lot of you have your heads so far up your own asses you can’t see the forest for the trees. I did not come here to babysit two old men measuring their cocks. I don’t give a shit what you decide. But you _will_ figure something out and come to an agreement, in this room, right now—because you do not have a choice.”

“Actually, no,” Eres says suddenly, “Sorry, that’s not true. You do have a choice. You can sit here, and shut up, and get over yourselves, and let me do my fucking job so I can save you - or: You can keep playing stupid games and die. Up to you. And if you decide you would rather die than set your own pride aside, then by all means,” Eres sweeps her gaze across the room, leveling each and every person with a look filled with dark promise, “let me know. I can make arrangements for an advance.”

Serana’s brows jump ever higher. She’s well over one hundred percent certain that she should likely not be turned on by Eres threatening some of the most powerful people in Skyrim, and yet...

“Make,” Eres bites out, “a _decision_.”

Then, abruptly, she turns on a heel, marches out of the room, and slams the door shut behind her. It feels like the very room quakes in her departure. Serana sees more than one person flinch in her wake.

“...Well,” Arngeir says, after a long, tense moment in which not a single other person looks as though they want to be the person to speak first after that display. “It appears the Dragonborn has ... tired of this negotiation going nowhere.”

Tullius clears his throat. “Yes, well...” When he eyes Ulfric from across the table, it is still with no small amount of distaste. Even so, he says, “At least I am able to admit that I have been ... shortsighted, in this. It seems that we have forgotten that Alduin and the danger he poses should be our primary focus, not what ground we may win or lose.”

Serana stands, even as Ulfric considers Tullius from his seat. She hears his low, thoughtful hum, the rumble of his reply in the background - but truth be told, she does not too much care what they come up with, so long as they cooperate. She doesn’t have a horse in that particular race. As long as they find some way to agree to a truce, and Balgruuf allows them to use Dragonsreach - that is all that matters to her. That is all that Eres needs.

All she cares about is the girl she loves. The girl that she finds exactly where she’d expected to - not anywhere in High Hrothgar proper, but in the private wing, seated on the floor at the edge of a fountain built into one wall, a statue of Kynareth rising into the sky beyond it, reaching for the stars.

In her hands, Eres twirls a single white-petaled flower. Though Serana looks about the room, she cannot find where she may have gotten it. She has certainly never seen such flowers anywhere else in the temple, and the mountain would be too cold to grow such a delicate flower here. But the flower within her hands looks as fresh and lively as though Eres had picked it not moments before Serana walked in the room.

That flower looks familiar. Seems familiar. Serana cannot help but to wonder at its appearance here, cannot help but remember that same white flower that had been in Coldharbour. Of the meaning it had held for Eres, even when she had been entirely unaware of her actions. She wonders what it means now, that Eres would find such a thing here, of all places, in this moment in time.

“Eres.”

Eres does not turn to face her. Serana kneels at her side all the same, wrapping her arms around her.

Eres is still tense, as rigid and unyielding as steel beneath her cloak and armor, but it is a tension Serana can at last feel drain from her when she holds her. One that eases, ever so slightly, when Eres sighs.

“They’re so… _stupid._ ” Eres hisses, disgustedly. “They’re so _fucking_ stupid.”

Somehow, it does not quite feel like Eres is only talking about the delegations.

“I know.” Serana says.

She hates that she looks at Eres and cannot remember the last time she has seen her smile, _truly_ smile in the way she only did when they were alone and Eres was happy. That she cannot remember the last time she has seen her without the dark bruises beneath her eyes, without exhaustion weighing down every inch of her.

More than ever, Serana wishes this was a burden she could have helped her carry. She’d have taken it from her entirely, if she could have.

“They’ll... come around.” Serana can’t promise that. She can’t promise they’ll be able to see past their own noses long enough for that. But they had seemed to be taking Eres’ words to heart, when she left. She can only hope. “If they don’t, then… we’ll find another way.”

Eres snaps around to look at her, eyes flashing. “There is no other way, Serana! This is all there is!” Eres throws an arm out, gesturing vaguely around at the temple around them - and likely the negotiations still going on somewhere behind closed doors not far from where they kneel. “ _This is it._ This is all that’s left.”

“Alright.” Serana does not know if it will work. It’s a whim, a guess, a what if – but Eres needs something more than just sitting in a stuffy temple, stewing over a bunch of idiotic men. She needs more than what comfort Serana can offer her here, boxed in and trapped within stone walls. “Come on.” She stands, pulling at Eres’ hand.

Eres looks up at her, sighing. The fire in her eyes fades, replaced with resignation. Serana doesn’t know which is worse. “I don’t want to go back yet.”

“We’re not going back.” Serana pulls again, and this time Eres rises to her feet, with a confused little wrinkle in her brow. Serana kisses it, just because. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Trust me.” Serana moves to the door at one side of the hall just outside the room, the one that opens into the courtyard just behind the temple. She pushes that door open without hesitation, a gust of bone-chilling wind blowing into the hall, carrying a dusting of snow several feet across the floor. “You do trust me, don’t you?”

Eres’ nose wrinkles. “It’s cold,” she complains, and it really is quite unfair that she can be so cute when she is being difficult. It’s even more unfair she can be this way even when she is stewing with anger, deep down, though much of it has receded back into the neat little boxes Eres packs everything in. Eres’ outburst in the hall had absolutely been nothing short of awe-inspiring and powerful and likely even intimidating, had she been someone who did not know her so closely. Now, with the flames reduced to embers rather than a raging blaze, it is almost bittersweet to see.

Serana does not like seeing Eres angry or upset. It would be terrible of her if she did. However, she would also be lying if she said she did not find Eres’ scowl cute at times, even when she likely should not.

“Let me carry you.”

Eres’ expression twists further, that very same scowl deepening with distaste. Serana holds back her instinctive amusement. Her usual teasing might not be received quite as well, just now. She’s not looking to get her own head cut off, too.

“Why?” Eres asks, making a face.

Serana rolls her eyes with a huff. “Are you going to interrogate me, or trust me?”

Eres meets her eyes, and for a moment, Serana thinks she might argue it. But finally, she sighs, and steps toward her.

“ _Fine_ ,” she mutters, clearly displeased despite her acquiescence.

“It will be faster this way.”

“What will be fast—“

Serana runs, speeding up the mountainside, up familiar trails that – were it any other time, any other situation, she might never have wanted to see again. Even despite that, when they reach the peak, Serana does not stop until they have passed the wrinkle in the air that is the Time Wound. Only when she is beneath the Word Wall, with it blocking the bite of the ice-cold wind, does she release her and allow her to stand.

Eres frowns at her, clear confusion written across her face – she does not know why Serana has brought her here.

Truth be told, even Serana does not know if her reasons make sense.

But she hears the flap of great wings upon the air, and soon after, the rumble of the ground shaking underfoot as Paarthurnax lands just before them, grumbling his low greeting in that deep, wizened voice of his.

“ _Yol, Dovahkiin,_ ” he gets Eres, first, but he does look at her, too. _“Serana.”_

Serana blinks, quite surprised he had remembered her name at all. Paarthurnax rumbles in answer, and something in her gets the sense that he is amused. That amusement is short lived. When Paarthurnax shifts forward, bowing his head low to greet Eres beside her, it is with a certain deference that, no matter how many times Serana sees it, will always take her aback.

That age-old dragons, even ones such as Paarthurnax himself, would bow their heads to Eres, of all people… Dragonborn or not, she may never get used to that.

Paarthurnax, briefly, presses the very point of his snout against Eres’ torso. He blows a puff of too-warm wind, sending her cloak billowing about her person, and draws back just as quickly.

 _“You have grown much since last we met, Dovahkiin._ ” Paarthurnax murmurs. _“I see that you are not the only visitor on the mountain today.”_

At that, Eres sighs at the reminder. “The Jarl of Whiterun wouldn’t let us use Dragonsreach unless the Imperials and Rebels agreed to a ceasefire.” She crosses her arms over her chest, scowling. The effect is somewhat ruined by the way she rather drowns in her old cloak. “They’re down there arguing about it, I assume.”

Paarthurnax chuckles. _“Often, the quarrels of Man makes little sense to we Dov. Blinks,”_ he says. _“Blinks in time that are nothing, in an eternity. The paths we tread may not always be smooth. Each life has peaks and troughs. Yours has more than most.”_

“Thanks,” Eres says dryly.

Paarthurnax chuckles again. _“Without tribulations, growth stagnates. Your life may have many troughs, indeed,”_ he murmurs. _“That only means your peaks will be higher than any might imagine possible.”_

Eres does not seem to believe that, but Serana does. She has seen it with her own eyes – the way she can command a room, even just minutes ago. There is nothing that Eres can not achieve, if she puts her mind to it. That, Serana is sure of.

“If you say so.”

 _“Come,”_ Paarthurnax says. He settles, stretching himself along the front of the Word Wall until they are encompassed on all sides, protected from the wind and snow by wall behind them and dragon in front.

 _“Perhaps there is wisdom I might yet offer you, hm? Or perhaps,”_ he says, _“it is not wisdom you require. But peace. Kyne yet lives in these old peaks.”_

Eres shifts on her feet. Something in her expression twists with discomfort, the way that it does when she is reminded of a particularly uncomfortable subject or memory. _Kahkaankrein_ , Serana remembers - hadn’t he said something similar, before he had gifted his soul to Eres within Coldharbour? Before he had brought her back to herself.

Eres sends Serana a dubious glance. “You brought me to speak with Paarthurnax? Now?”

“Kahkaankrein,” Serana says. It seems even more apparent now, with what Paarthurnax had said, than it had before, when she had questioned her own reasoning. From the realization in her eyes, she knows she does not need to say more for Eres to understand. She says it, all the same.

“He brought you peace in Coldharbour,” she says quietly. “I thought maybe Paarthurnax could do the same for you here. Without absorbing him, of course.”

Paarthurnax blows a breath of what feels like an offended huff in her direction. There is no bite to it, only a slight, not uncomfortable heat.

“Oh,” Eres says.

Serana is not even sure what the look on her face means, then. She knows Eres well enough to often have at least an educated guess of what she is thinking, but not this time. She’s never quite seen that look before. It is a look that appears both surprised and deeply considering, mixed with something else that Serana cannot name.

Eres reaches to grasp her hand, and squeezes it gently with her own. That is enough thanks for her.

 _“Sit, Dovahkiin.”_ Paarthurnax murmurs. “ _The world will not end just yet._ _”_

Eres does, and she pulls Serana with her, and she already looks just the slightest bit lighter just for being in his presence. Serana had gambled on this, unsure if it would even work - but perhaps her intuition was much stronger than even she had thought it was.

“Maybe you ought to call Durnehviir, too, while you’re at it,” Serana remarks, only half sarcastic. As long as they are bringing dragons about to put Eres in a better mood, why not? Hell, if that’s what it took – Eres could call all the damn dragons she liked.

“Do you know Durnehviir?” Eres asks Paarthurnax, instead.

Paarthurnax hums. _“My brother, yes. He did not join me against Alduin, then.”_

“I met him in the Soul Cairn,” Eres tells him. “The Ideal Masters tricked him.”

Paarthurnax does not look surprised. _“I wondered,”_ he admits softly, _“for his fate.”_

Eres does not shout, then. She calls Durnehviir’s name instead as though he is already beside her. The sound of it, something in it, still makes the hair on the back of Serana’s neck stand on end.

Durnehviir’s answering rumble meets her ears, not a moment later.

Eres looks up at him, perched on the Word Wall, and she does smile, then.

“You look better every time I see you,” she says to him, pleased warmth in her voice.

 _“…So I do,”_ Durnehviir agrees, slowly. He shifts in place. Serana looks, and Eres is right – his scales seem somehow more solid, less like they are sloughing off of him, more like… More like he is healing, somehow. Like life is being breathed into him, from the beyond.

Serana sees Paarthurnax’s gaze shift from Eres, to Durnehviir, and back again. She sees something of a knowing enter those eyes, something of an understanding. An understanding of something that Serana does not have. She looks between them both, and she cannot for the life of her figure out what the strange, measuring look between them had meant.

 _“Brother,”_ Paarthurnax greets him. _“It has been some time.”_

 _“…So it has,”_ Durnehviir answers. _“I have missed Tamriel.”_

 _“As Tamriel has missed you, I am sure,”_ Paarthurnax chuckles.

 _“As Tamriel misses many things.”_ Durnehviir responds - but he does not seem to be joking at all. Instead, his eyes lower to Eres again, peering up at them both from her seat on the ground beneath them. _“Only time will tell if what Tamriel misses is what it needs.”_

Paarthurnax hums in consideration. _“Yes,”_ he murmurs in agreement. _“Time will tell. Perhaps we shall be the first to hear it speak.”_

There is something Serana is missing, here. Something to do with Eres. Something to do with what the dragons see in her - with, perhaps, why Paarthurnax bows to her, even old and powerful as he is. Something _they_ see, and yet somehow - Serana has missed it.

“What are you two talking about?” Eres asks, huffing with good-natured annoyance. “Have you considered not speaking in riddles?”

The two dragons laugh in unison. Serana shivers at the sound of it. Eres does not.

 _“What would be the fun in that?”_ Paarthurnax asks. _“So few things amuse us, little one. Allow us to indulge ourselves once in a while.”_

 _“Riddles are good for the mind,”_ Durnehviir argues. _“It builds character.”_

Eres makes a face. “You’re starting to sound like my mother.”

 _“You are a Sibling more than a Child,”_ Paarthurnax tells her patiently. _“Now,”_ he says, _“tell us what has you so troubled, Dovahkiin. Perhaps we may be of assistance.”_

* * *

Some hours later, Serana returns Eres to High Hrothgar. They are greeted by none other than Elenwen herself, disdainfully tossing a scroll in Eres’ direction.

“Your treaty, _Dragonborn_.” Elenwen sneers. “See that you make use of it while it lasts. Wouldn’t want all this to be for nothing, after all. Then again,” she eyes Eres critically, “it may be for nothing regardless. _You_ , against Alduin?” She scoffs, turning to leave them to their own. “We are all doomed, I fear.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Eres mutters under her breath as she walks away, scowling.

“I heard that.”

“You were _meant to_ ,” Eres retorts, glaring at the woman’s back. Elenwen turns a corner, leaving them with no more than a rude hand gesture as she disappears around it. “Oh, very mature.”

“I seem to recall you doing the same thing to me once…” Serana muses, remembering that day quite well. That had been the first time she’d truly seen the depth of Eres’ affection for her, back when she had still been so very insecure about it.

Eres’ gaze snaps to hers, affronted. “Are you comparing me to Elenwen?”

“What?” Serana blinks. How did they get here? Did she say something wrong? “No, of course not.” Eres’ eyes narrow suspiciously.

Serana shakes her head, cups Eres’ cheeks in her hands, and kisses her, as gently and tenderly as she is able. The first kiss, Eres returns almost begrudgingly, still plainly annoyed by the unintentional comparison. With the second, Eres forgives her, sighing into her lips and softening in her arms.

There is the barest memory of arousal, lurking beneath the surface somewhere. But in a temple as they are, Serana cannot think of such things even if she wanted to.

Instead, she pulls Eres closer, because she had missed her softness and her warmth, she had missed _her_ Eres that the tensions of the council had buried.

“This isn’t the place,” Eres murmurs against her lips.

“Hmm…” Serana considers that. She kisses her again. “We have an entire wing to ourselves. We should take advantage of that.”

She can almost taste Eres’ surprise. “ _Advantage_?”

Serana presses her against the nearest wall. A breathlessness flutters in her chest. Perhaps she can think of it a _little_ , after all…

A sharp, pointed thud sounds too close to them for comfort. Eres flinches away from her, startled, and the moment is ruined.

Serana, irritated, glares down the hall at the culprit. The culprit she had already had more than reason enough to hate before now.

Claude, standing in the dim corridor of the hallway in the same, semi-formal robes he had attended the council in. His eyes are hard, his mouth harder, and he approaches them with not an ounce of hesitation or remorse for interrupting them.

He stops just a couple of feet away from them. His eyes fix upon Eres’.

“We need to talk.” He says tersely. “Now.”

He’s said two sentences and Serana already wants to punch him again. “Who the hell do you—”

“It’s about Romulus.” Claude doesn’t even look at her. He speaks to Eres, and Eres only. “And your mother.”

“Claude—” Eres starts, but Claude’s expression hardens.

“You wanted an explanation, right?” Claude cuts in. Eres’ brow furrows.

“It’s time I gave it to you.”


	23. Torchbearer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at long fucking last

“You wanted an explanation, right?” Claude asks. Eres’ brow furrows. “It’s time I gave it to you.”

The very last person Serana wants to see right now is Claude. She wouldn’t want to see him on a _good_ day, let alone in the middle of the night that she had seen going very differently in her head.

How long had he been standing there? How much had he seen? Why had he waited so long to make his presence known? Serana wouldn’t even put it past a guy like him to get some kind of sick pleasure out of spying on them in a private moment. And to have the nerve to interrupt them… Serana wouldn’t kill him, of course. But she kind of wants to.

Eres, on the other hand, shifts her focus instantly. One moment, she is in Serana’s arms, perfectly warm to her and willing—and the next, Claude throws a wrench into it, and whatever heat there may have been between them is doused at once.

“This way.” Claude whispers, an unnecessary caution in the emptiness of the temple in the middle of the night. With a jerk of his head, he turns down the corridor, trusting them to follow.

Eres does at once, without hesitation.

Serana does not share Eres’ easy trust for him.

She remembers the Embassy. She remembers Claude inserting himself into the equation where he was not needed. She remembers - he’d helped, yes, if one could call it that. But then, even knowing that Eres would be a target, he went right back to the Army anyway. How much could he possibly be trusted when he was in bed with the same people who worked alongside the Thalmor, who at the very least were interested in Eres, if not wishing to kill her?

Not to mention the way he’d leered at her like she was some common harlot… His perverted comments, the way he’d supposedly let Eres think he was dead this whole time, as close as they had seemingly been as kids.

Serana has no shortage of reasons to dislike him.

Claude walks down the long corridor ahead of them, and right into the archives. He does not so much as glance behind him as he goes, confident that they will follow where he leads them.

Serana doesn’t like that, either. There’s only one person she’d follow to the ends of the earth without question. Unfortunately, that very same person seems more than willing to follow Claude.

Serana has never been in the archives.

The ceilings in High Hrothgar have never been especially low, but here in the Archives, they seem to stretch into the sky itself. It is more of a tower than a single room, with wall to wall shelves lining each side of a room split in half with a long, wide walkway. Short stone tables dot that long hall, each only large enough to fit two or three people, and far enough apart that someone at one table would not hear someone speaking at another. Each of them sports both a bookstand and a flatter, longer stand that one might have opened a scroll across. The candles at the very center of those tables are the only light source the cold, empty library has this time of night, and when Claude leads them to a dark alcove in a corner as far from the front as possible, there is only moonlight to see by.

Claude turns, and opens his mouth, and Serana grabs for Eres’ wrist.

“One moment.” She says to Claude, before he can speak. “I need to speak with her alone.”

“What?” Eres asks, but Serana pulls her away from him, pulls her out of the alcove all over again and counts at least four shelves and their aisles before she leads Eres to the end of the fifth aisle, confident that Claude could not overhear them.

“Serana—”

Serana pulls her closer, lowering her voice to the quietest of whispers.

“I don’t trust him, Eres.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “Is that what this is about? At least let him speak before you decide you don’t trust what he’s saying.”

“I don’t need to hear it. I _already_ don’t trust him, and I don’t think you should either.” Eres’ lips press into a frown. “I know that you grew up with him. I know that he was important to you. But it’s been - what, nearly a decade since you knew him? He disappears off the face of the map and now just happens to show up at the same party as Elenwen, and now he’s here again, and so is she, and she clearly knows who we are. She knows who _you_ are, now.”

Eres rolls her eyes. “I highly doubt he’s working with the Thalmor, Serana.”

“Doubt,” Serana repeats. “You _doubt_. You don’t know for sure. And you can’t know for sure, because you don’t know him anymore. People change, Eres. He’s not the same guy you knew. He’s already lied to you once. He let you think he was dead. According to you, he even let his own parents think he was dead. You don’t think that makes him just a _little bit_ suspicious?”

“That’s the whole point of this conversation,” Eres says, and her frown only deepens. She acts like _Serana_ is the one being unreasonable here, not herself. “He said he’s going to explain. That’s why we’re here.”

“And what makes you think you can trust whatever he says to you?” What _was it_ about Claude that made Eres trust him so blindly? How could she not see it? “At best, he’s a shit friend who let you think he was dead because he ‘forgot’ to let you know otherwise. At worst, he could be an enemy. And with the Thalmor aware of you now, we have to be more careful.”

Eres’ brows lower, her expression cooling. “You don’t know him like I do. I at least want to hear him out.”

“ _You_ don’t know him, either!” Serana throws up her hands, frustrated fed beyond belief. Eres isn’t usually this hardheaded about something. Usually, Eres is the logical one. This is the furthest from logical. And the fact that she can’t even seem to see it…

“You _did_ know him, Eres! Years ago! When you were a _child_. You are not a kid anymore, and neither is he. He is not the same guy you grew up with. He’s changed from - whatever guy you think you knew back then. I don’t know why this is so hard for you to understand—”

“ _Everyone_ changes, Serana!” Serana reels back, surprised by the snap of her tone, by the sudden flash of anger in Eres’ eyes. “That’s what people do! _I_ _’ve_ changed. Do you even know how much I’ve changed just since I met you? Just since I came to Skyrim? People _change_ ,” and Eres’ voice shifts then, growing tight and half to wavering. “None of us are the same people we were years ago. People grow, and they grow apart, and…”

Eres looks away from her. Swallows. When she looks back at Serana, her eyes are harder than they were.

“I don’t trust him either.” Eres says tightly. “You’re right. He’s lied to me. Guess what? _So have you_. So has everyone. You think I don’t know that he might not be telling the truth? That he might not be the same guy I knew growing up? I’m not _stupid_ , and I wish you would stop acting like you think I am.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Eres.” Serana sighs. She’s _acting_ stupid, maybe, but Eres has never actually been stupid. That’s not even remotely what she’d meant. “I just think you’re too close to this to see it clearly.”

“How hard would it be for you to just give him a chance?”

“Considering it might end up hurting you?” Serana returns, frowning back at her. “ _Very_ hard, actually.” If _Eres_ isn’t going to be smart about this, then fine. Serana will be smart for her.

“Just—” Eres’ hands lift to her face, fingers pressing into closed eyes. She heaves a sigh that shudders, that wavers around the edges.

Serana looks at her, looks at this girl on the verge of breaking, and her heart sinks, her brief ire giving way to something like guilt. She’d pushed too hard, and now…

Now hadn’t been the right time to do this. Eres is already stressed enough with the summit, and Alduin, and Elenwen, and everything else piled up on her shoulders. She’d been upset near to tears just that morning, and now Serana’s pushed her again, and undone whatever peace she’d gained from the Throat of the World with Paarthurnax and Durnehviir. She should have waited.

She’ll take a step back, then. Back from this. She’ll stop pushing, for now. She’ll wait until it’s the right time, and then, maybe Eres will be more receptive. Maybe she’ll be able to understand where Serana is coming from.

“Alright,” Serana says, sighing. “Fine. Let’s just—forget this, then. For now,” she offers. They can talk about this later, maybe. When Eres has had a chance to settle.

“I can’t just forget it, Serana.” Eres drops her hands from her face, sighing wearily. Serana hates the glossy sheen to her eyes that had not been there before. _She_ had done this. She had just wanted to tell Eres to be cautious, that she should take everything Claude said with a grain of salt. She hadn’t meant for this conversation to go the way it did.

“I have a _chance,_ _”_ Eres whispers, and her voice is fragile, paper-thin and watery around the edges. “I’ve never had a chance before. I have a chance to make him _stay_. So just _try_ ,” Eres begs her. “Please. For me. Just try with him. Just _try_ to believe me when I say he’s a good guy.”

“He _was_ a good guy,” Serana says, not harshly, not unkindly. She keeps her voice soft, hoping to soften whatever hardness had come between them. Whoever Claude had been, back then, that did not mean he was a good person _now_. Eres needs to be careful. “He _was_. He might not be good anymore, Eres.”

“He saved me.” There are tears, on her cheeks. But it is not sadness that Serana sees in her eyes, but anger. An anger that is building by the minute, growing more heated in the darkness of her gaze. “He was there for me when I had nothing else. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.” Eres’ gaze hardens. “You don’t have to like him. But don’t sit here and expect me to listen to this when you never even gave him a chance to begin with. You hated him the moment you saw him.”

“That’s not true—”

“Please,” Eres scoffs. “I’m not blind. He’d hardly said two words to you and you already wanted him dead. You were all too happy to knock him out.”

“You _told_ me to do that!” Serana’s losing her mind. She has to be. This is absolutely ridiculous. Why are they fighting over Claude? Why is Eres mad at her _over Claude_ , of all people? She’d tried to let this go, she’d tried to end it, move away from it, revisit it later, and Eres just keeps _pushing it_.

“And so did he! And for a friend of yours, he was more than happy to go back to the Thalmor. Or did you forget about that part? Are you just willfully ignoring anything about him that seems untoward? You’re _smarter_ than this.”

“Oh, am I?” Eres’ voice cuts at her, lashing like a whip. “If you actually believed that, then you’d trust me to make my own decisions. You’d trust that I know what I’m doing.”

“I _do_ trust you. I don’t trust _him_ ,” Serana drags a hand down her face. This could not have gone more sideways if she’d tried. “And I already said I don’t think you’re stupid. I just think your emotions are clouding your judgment right now. You’re too close to him to see him for what he is. You want to believe he’s good, so you won’t hear anything else, no matter what I say to you. Maybe when you remember that _logic_ has a place in decision making, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.”

Serana knows, as soon as the words leave her mouth, that she’s made a mistake. She’d let her own frustration slip into it, she’d let herself say something far more condescending than she’d meant to. And she sees it, written on Eres’ face.

She sees it in the way that Eres straightens, in the way she raises her chin, the way her eyes narrow, the way her expression shutters near-instantaneously. She sees it in the way Eres’ eyes flash, the way they burn cold at her, colder even than the mask she can almost see slipping into place.

“Really,” Eres says, and it is not so much of a question as it is a statement, a challenge, a declaration of something that Serana can’t and doesn’t want to name.

“Eres,” Serana sighs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just think you need to be cautious when it comes to someone who might be trying to deceive you. You’re close to him. That makes him more dangerous. You’re inclined to believe whatever he says because you want to. That doesn’t mean he’s not a liar. That doesn’t mean he’s not hiding things from you.”

“Awfully hypocritical of you.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“It means you’re lying to me.” Serana stiffens. This isn’t something Eres is saying just to get to her. The anger she sees in Eres is not even about Claude, anymore. “And don’t think I don’t know it. You’re telling me to watch out for Claude because he _might_ be lying to me?”

“Eres—”

“Look in a fucking mirror.” Eres favors her with one last reproachful look and spins on her heel, stalking so briskly away from her she might as well have been running.

In a moment, Eres has turned a corner around a shelf, and she is gone. Gone, back to Claude. Away from her.

Away from Serana, who’d only been trying to _help_ , for fuck’s sake.

Serana, groaning under her breath, turns to the shelf beside her and introduces her forehead to it.

How? _How_ had that gone so poorly? How was it that Eres would take _Claude_ _’s_ side over hers? Hadn’t Serana proven, over and over, that she only had Eres’ best interest in mind?

Perhaps she could have timed it better, yes, but it had needed to be said. How could she keep Eres from getting her heart broken over this stupid boy if she wouldn’t even listen to her? If Eres trusted him, and Claude ended up betraying her… Serana didn’t want to think of how crushed Eres would be if that happened.

Serana allows herself a moment to be frustrated. Allows herself to regret her approach, if only for a moment. She can feel sorry for herself later. Right now, Eres is alone with him, and Serana needs to make sure that at least one of them is going to listen to him impartially. Critically. Skeptically. And Eres clearly isn’t going to be the one to do it, so it has to be her.

With a sigh, Serana turns away from the shelf and makes her way back to the alcove.

* * *

“Everything okay?” Claude asks, when Eres returns.

Eres glances at him, and his eyebrows raise high on his forehead. She looks away, wiping the scowl from her face, and drops into the seat across the table from him.

“Fine.” She mutters, and even she doesn’t believe it. She can’t keep her annoyance out of her tone, and it shows. Claude looks over her shoulder questioningly. Eres waves a hand, shaking her head. “Just go. It’s nothing.”

“You sure?” Claude looks doubtful. His expression turns even more skeptical, his eyes fixing on something just over her shoulder. She’s not surprised in the slightest when she senses Serana’s approach.

She does note, however, that Serana does not sit beside her. Eres, very pointedly, does not look back at her. She’s just going to be pissed all over again if she does.

“You said you had an explanation to give me.” Eres pushes the argument out of her mind. She’ll have time to be mad about it later. To worry about it later. She’d never thought she’d ever have such a disagreement with Serana, of all people. But here they were. “Out with it, then.”

Claude glances between them, looking from Eres to Serana to back to Eres again. Whatever he sees on their faces must convince him that it’s better not to ask.

“Alright,” he says slowly, and he seems to decide to focus on Eres, instead. “I don’t have a lot of time, so we’ll have to make this as quick as we can. I don’t know how long Romulus will be out of it.”

Eres’ brows raise. “Out of it? What did you do?”

Claude sends her a quick, roguish grin. “Laced his nightcap with a bit of laudanum. Sleeping like a baby, he is.” He shrugs. “For now, anyways.”

Eres tsks under her breath. “Idiot. What if he realizes you’ve drugged him?”

Claude shrugs again. “He won’t. It’s not the first time. He’s usually out for a few hours at least, but,” he glances over her shoulder again, and wisely decides not to finish that sentence. He coughs into a hand. “Well, it took a while to find you after the summit was over.”

“I was busy.”

Under other circumstances, the Claude she knew might have made a joke of that. _Yeah, I_ _’ll bet you were_ , she can practically hear, right alongside a knowing grin. This Claude, however, does not.

Whether it is because he is not as immature as he once was, or because he has sensed the mood and decided such a joke would not be appreciated, Eres isn’t sure. Whatever the case, she’s glad for it.

“Right, well.” Claude leans over in his seat, lifting a medium-sized leather book bag to the surface of the table. He opens it hurriedly, shaking it to send the journals within spilling out of it. There are small, leatherbound journals not unlike the ones Eres had once kept as a Vigilant. There are larger, thinner ones, their thick covers splattered with what appears to be old stains of paint and dye. Each and every one of them is well-worn, the pages stiff and crinkled, the covers scraped and torn and eroded in places that speaks of their age.

“What’s all this?”

“Evidence.” Claude says shortly. He looks her in the eyes, holding her gaze. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me without it. You’d have no reason to.”

Eres frowns as he shuffles through the pile, murmuring under his breath. At last, he produces one of the thin, larger ones, this one with a blackened leather cover that looks water-damaged and soiled. Even the pages have puffed up in one corner in a way only water makes them. Claude opens it, leafs through it, and finally - he opens it to a page, and slides it across the surface of the table.

Eres looks down, and sees her own face.

The portrait is actually very well done, Eres will admit. Even despite the age that fades the colors and cracks the paper it was painted upon, there is clear skill in it. Skill, Eres thinks, and a _lot_ of attention. Whoever had painted it must have spent hours getting the likeness as close to reality as possible. There is even the tiniest detail of the thin line of a scar just near the tip of the right ear.

It is a scar that Eres herself does not have. Auria, however, might. The eyes, too, are bluer than her own. The nose just a tiny bit more pointed, the cheekbones a bit higher. It is an uncanny likeness to herself, yes - but it is a dead ringer for her mother before her.

“You remember how I said Romulus knew your mother?” Claude asks her. “This is what I found, that night.”

Eres looks back at him. Back at the Claude she once knew, and does not anymore.

His face is more angular than she remembers it. Claude was a bit of a late bloomer. At sixteen, he’d still had the soft cheeks of a boy rather than the angular slopes of a man. His chin had still been a little rounded, his hair wild and tousled in that way that only young boys could get away with. His shoulders weren’t quite as broad as they are now, he hadn’t been quite as tall.

Claude had always towered over her, but now he is taller. His shoulders are wider, his form broadening and hardening in the way a man’s does. The pretty-boy softness of his face is almost entirely absent, now, though there is still the hint of his boyish looks without facial hair to make them rugged. His jaw has hardened, his chin squared, and even his eyes are now sharp and serious where once they had been mischievous and light.

He is not the same boy she knew. She had known that, of course. It was impossible to miss how he’d grown. He was a man now, not a boy, just as she is a woman, and not a girl.

But he is still Claude, somewhere. She knows it. She _knows_ it. Even if Serana doesn’t. Even if Serana won’t.

“What night was this?”

Claude’s smile is bitter. “The night of my first assignment. After we get out of training, we’re sent to one of the camps. Doesn’t even matter how old we are. I was one of the older boys. There was another kid who couldn’t have been more than twelve.” He shakes his head. “But we aren’t experienced. No real field training. So we’re sent to learn under the wings of a Legate, or some other officer in the army. They get to pick who they want to serve them.”

Eres’ expression twists. “ _Serve_ them?”

“Not like that.” Claude says quickly. His expression darkens, however. “At least not for me. I don’t know about the others. Heard of it, sometimes. Never saw it. If it happened, it was kept on the low.”

“Anyway, they lined us up and let the officers choose. Romulus chose me. My job was—basically to wait on him, hand and foot. Earn my place. There’s a lot of that shit in the army. He had me doing all his shit for him. Cleaning his tent, polishing his armor, making his meals…” He grimaces, shaking his head. “One day, he got to drinking, and,” he shrugs. “I got to snooping.”

“Of course.” Eres rolls her eyes, unsurprised. Of course Claude would go digging through an officer’s things.

“I was bored.” He shrugs again. “But I started looking around, and I found all these journals in his trunk. Sketchbooks, like this one.” He points at the drawing of Auria. “This one, specifically, actually. Nothing too interesting about it until I saw that page.”

“I thought it was you,” he says quietly. “I remember, I thought it was you. And I had no idea how he knew you. There were all these portraits in there, of my _friend_ back home - and then I wondered, did he pick me on purpose? Did he know I knew you?”

“But Romulus found me out. He saw me, and that’s when he told me about her. About your mom. About the ‘elf bitch’ he met in Valenwood.” Claude shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “He wanted her. This isn’t the only sketchbook he’s got. He’s got - dozens of paintings like this one. And even more of them are just drawings. Sketches and the like. He’s obsessed with her. And he kept saying how he’d get back to Valenwood and finally get what he deserved.”

“So what does this have to do with me?” Eres asks him. “You couldn’t have sent me a letter telling me about this? Telling me my mom was alive? Anything?”

Claude’s face morphs into a scowl. “You think I didn’t want to? Don’t you remember why I left in the first place? Don’t you remember I left to help my mom? Do you think I would’ve just given them up for nothing, Eres? Do you think I just let them think I was dead for nothing?”

“I don’t know.” Eres says honestly. “The Claude I knew would have told them he was alive.”

“He wouldn’t have.” Claude’s expression hardens, turning to stone. “Not if it meant you’d be in danger. And his family, too, maybe.”

“Claude—”

Claude slams his finger onto the portrait of Auria. “He had dozens of these, Eres!” He whispers fiercely. “Dozens! And you look _just like her_. He couldn’t get to Valenwood. But he could _get to you_. I think the only reason he didn’t is that he was holding out for your mother. Forgot you even existed, probably. He left the city when you were still a kid. Hadn’t been to the capital in over ten years. But he knew she had a daughter. Whenever he got drunk, he’d talk about how he should just snatch you up and make her come to him, instead of him having to find her.”

“I had to keep an eye on him. I couldn’t let him know I knew you. I couldn’t send word back to you, because he could have read anything I sent out. And he’d have found you. And if I mentioned you to my family? He would have found you. If I wrote to my family at all, he could have found you, if he was curious enough. He was a spymaster, Eres. Rooting out shit like that was his _job_. If he found out you were connected to me in any way, you’d have been fucked.”

“And maybe,” Claude says, leaning back in his seat, “maybe he would have decided your mother was too much trouble. You were sixteen then, Eres. You weren’t a little girl anymore. Hell, being a little girl doesn’t even stop some men out there. He might’ve just seen how much you looked like her and decided he wanted an easier catch. A younger one. Maybe one that wouldn’t be able to run away from him. One that would never be able to escape him.”

“You wanted an explanation.” Claude says tightly, eyes swimming with hidden pain. “It was you. I let you think I was dead _for you_. I gave up my family for _you_.”

“Claude—”

Claude shakes his head. “I never expected to meet you again. I hoped, in ten years or so, Romulus might finally keel over and I can retire. Go back home, see if my family’s still around… Get them out of the city. As far away from the Empire as possible. And know that I did all I could to make sure he never got to you. _You_ were my family, too.”

“But then,” Claude huffs out a bitter laugh. “You just _had_ to show up at the Embassy. You just _had_ to be the gods-damned Dragonborn. And now Romulus has seen you, and he knows who you are, now. Which means he’s going to look into you. Which means he’s going to find your mother, too.”

Eres leans back in her own seat, chewing at the inside of her lip. “Is it possible you’re being a bit paranoid, here? It’s been—what, twenty years since then? You think he’s still obsessed with her?”

“I _know_ he’s still obsessed with her,” Claude corrects her. “You didn’t see the way he looked at you when you walked in that door. Like he’d just been handed the bloody crown. He’s got you in his sights, now. And if _I_ can find out where your mother is,” Claude says pointedly, “he definitely can.”

Eres’ brow lowers, hackles raising. “You’ve been looking into me?”

“I’ve been watching out for you.” Claude retorts. “I had to find out where you lived so I could warn you if the Thalmor came knocking - or Romulus’ goons. Trust me, he has them in spades. And then I had to make sure nobody in that little town of yours was one of his minions spying on you. They’re not, by the way,” he adds. “In case you wanted to know. He hasn’t gotten that close yet.”

“Yet,” Eres repeats.

“Yet,” Claude confirms. “He will. Especially now. _Especially now_ ,” he repeats. “Now that he knows you’re the Dragonborn. You’ve got all this power up under you, and there’s your mother, in broad daylight. Not even bothering to hide herself anymore. She was alright in Valenwood with that, maybe, but here? He’ll get his men to snatch her up in a heartbeat. And then, yeah, _maybe_ he’s satisfied. Or maybe he uses her to get to you, so he can control you. So he could have the Dragonborn in his pocket. Romulus didn’t get to where he is now on the straight and narrow.”

“Claude,” Eres sighs. “I’m not afraid of Romulus.”

Out of all the things she has to be afraid of, Romulus is perhaps the least concerning enemy she’s ever made. She’s made an enemy of a bloody Prince. And now, technically, a god who wanted to end the world. Romulus seems almost laughable in comparison.

“You should be.” Claude says fiercely. “Who do you think killed your father?”

Eres’ thoughts skitter to a screeching halt. There is the flash of memory in her mind - memory, and dreams, and all the things in between that she can no longer separate.

Her father, collapsed over his desk, as peacefully as though he had simply nodded off during a late night of work. Coming to look for him, that day. Finding him. Thinking him asleep. Waking him. Trying to wake him. Cold skin, beneath her fingers. Understanding. Numbness. A simple, _oh. He_ _’s dead._

That’s what she remembers. Or - that’s what she _thought_ she’d remembered. She’d rarely thought of it, after that day. She hadn’t even looked at his body at the funeral. She hadn’t wanted to see him, that way.

He might have been an asshole, and she might have hated him, and she might have even been glad to finally be free of him - but at the end of the day, he was still her father. There had still been just the tiniest part of her that had loved him. That had ached for his loss, deep down, deep beneath the relief she felt. And the guilt she felt for that relief.

Anytime she had thought of that time in her mind after that, she remembers the estate being broken up. She remembers the officiates coming to appraise the house and what little remained in it. Cataloging each and every item that had once been hers, coldly calculating how much it might be worth. Weighing that against the debts her father had built in his last years.

 _There goes the house, then,_ Eres had thought. _And that old jewelry box that smells like a woman_ _’s perfume I’ve never met._

The one that a child Eres would kneel in front of and open, just to sit in the scent of it and pretend it was her mother’s, all those years later, somehow preserved in the velvet lining. Eres had never opened the drawers inside it for fear that the scent would fade, and she’d have nothing left of the imaginary mother she’d conjured up in her mind. That had been one of the first things they’d taken.

They’d shaken their heads and tutted under their breath at the state of the jewelry left to dull inside it. _House needed a woman_ _’s touch_ , Eres heard one of the mutter. Maybe if her father had been able to keep one, none of this would have happened.

Then, spotting that old key tucked between the bedpost and the nightstand in her father’s room as the movers stripped it bare. She’d fumbled a coin just for the sake of picking it up. And then she’d made up some silly excuse and left them to their business while she rushed to the bank whose sigil was engraved on the head of the key. Right to the little box labeled _SV242._

She had not expected to find anything at all. But there had been the deed to Fellburg, folded several times over and shoved into the very back of the drawer, entirely forgotten by a man who had sold everything else of worth.

She remembers the aftermath clearly. She can remember every step between her father’s death and arriving in Skyrim, without difficulty. As clearly as if it had happened only yesterday. Such a turning point in her life could not be so easily forgotten.

But her father’s death itself, on the other hand… The memory is fuzzy around the edges, wispy and uncertain in the way that feels like a mirage, like an illusion that might shatter if she presses too hard.

She remembers the dream. The bloodied dagger. Blood, dripping from the desk to the ground. Imperial officers and — and nothing else. It feels like there is a wall there, somewhere. Like there is some sort of lock she doesn’t have the key to. There is something behind those doors, she knows it, but approaching it calls dread into her veins, crawling up the back of her neck.

 _Something_ _’s not right here_ , it feels like. _We_ _’re not supposed to be here._

It feels unwelcome. Feels dangerous. Feels like she can’t remember it for a reason. Like she wasn’t supposed to have even dreamed it.

_“The man who wanted your father dead—”_

_“Who do you think killed your father?”_

Eres presses her hands into her eyes. An ache builds in her temples like a keening wail. _No, no, no. Not this. Not now. Not ever. No._

The flashes come unbidden, and it is like something bats them away, like some subconscious part of her rails against it, fighting to keep it from the surface. Fighting to keep it hidden, fighting to keep her lost in ignorance. Lost in the peace of not knowing.

“Eres,” a hand clasps around her arm. It is too large, too squarish, too firm to be comforting. It is not Serana’s hand. “You _do_ remember, don’t you?”

“No,” Eres hears herself mutter. “No, he—he drunk himself to death, he—”

The hand at her arm tightens. She hears him suck in a breath. “Eres, look at me.”

It hurts, but the pressure isn’t helping with the ache, anyways. She drops her hands to her cheeks, and looks at him, and he looks at her with almost fearful concern. He looks—he doesn’t look just worried, for her. He looks like he’s _afraid_.

“Eres,” he says slowly. “Er. You know,” he says, very slowly. Very carefully. “You _know_ that your dad never drank. You know that. He didn’t even keep liquor in the house. You used to say it was the one good thing about him. He never drank.”

Her temples throb. She squeezes her eyes shut, groaning pitiably.

That’s not true. That can’t be true. He’d had a bottle on the table when he died. He started drinking when he started gambling. That was what happened. She remembers it. She _remembers it_.

Doesn’t she? 

“Remember?” Claude prompts her, imploringly. “Eres, remember the - gods, what was her name? The last one. The one you hated. The one who got all bitchy because you wouldn’t _make an effort_ , or whatever. Remember her? Remember how she always drank? Don’t you remember how your father hated it? How he said—”

_“Stop coming in my house smelling like a damn brewery. I have a child in this house.”_

_“She’s more than old enough,”_ she’d heard, in a woman’s voice. Through the muffle of a closed door. She no longer even remembers that woman’s name, let alone what she had looked like. She had been little more than a shadow of a person in the halls of Eres’ childhood home, hardly worth her attention. “ _It_ _’s just ale, Hein. Hell, my brothers were already drinking at her age.”_

 _“That’s your brothers, not my kid. I don’t care if she knows what it is. Doesn’t mean she needs to smell it in my house. Doesn’t mean **I** want to smell it in my house._ _”_

A door, opening in the middle of the night, long after the screaming had stopped. Long after Eres had given up trying to sleep through the thuds and bumps in the night. The flickering light of a candle in the darkness of her room. Weight sinking into the mattress. A hand on her shoulder.

_“Hey, kiddo. Sorry you had to hear that. What about tomorrow, we go up to that little parlor, huh? You can bring that rat boy too, if you want—”_

He always apologized. He always tried to make it up to her, like treating her to ice cream would erase the memories. Like it could make her forget who he was. He always said it would never happen again.

He always lied. 

_“Dad, his name is Claude.”_

_“Right, Clod—that’s what I said, isn’t it?”_

_“ **Claude** , dad._ _”_

 _“Alright, alright. Tomorrow.”_ Her dad had lifted his chin, lowered the lids of his eyes until he’d looked down his long nose at her, an exaggerated, haughty expression on his face. _“Inform Sir Claudius that we shall meet him for brunch tomorrow—”_

Not all of the memories are bad. Maybe that’s the hardest part about remembering him. When he wasn’t - well, _him_ \- he could be a good father. Sometimes.

Maybe that’s why she can’t imagine anyone actually murdering him.

Sure, she’d joked about it herself, sometimes. A few times, when she’d been angry and resentful enough, she’d even considered it more seriously. But actually imagining him being murdered? That was harder.

It was easier to pretend he’d died naturally. Of his own stupidity.

Maybe he had still died that way, in a manner. Maybe he’d still brought on his own death. Just not in the same way she remembered it.

“So what now, then?” Eres asks him. She pushes it away. Pushes it down. Not now. Not now. “Say I believe you with all this. Say I buy it. What now?”

“Now?” Claude asks. “Now, you get the fuck out of Skyrim. You and your mother. Go to Valenwood, or Elswyr, or - anywhere but here. Anywhere the Empire’s lost ground in. Valenwood’s your best bet. We haven’t been able to get a damn camp there in decades, and the landscape’s always changing. It’s the easiest place you could go to if you wanted to disappear. Your mother practically vanished into thin air in there, from how Romulus tells it. He had to wait until she came back to Skyrim, or the Empire gained a foothold there.”

“You’re telling me to _run_?”

“Do you think I’m _joking_ about Romulus?” Claude looks at her, equally incredulous. “It’s not him killing you I’m worried about, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s what he would do to you. To the people you care about. I’ve _seen him_ do this shit, Eres. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Too many times. Romulus doesn’t go after a man himself. He goes after the people close to them. He weeds them out like it’s a game to him. He wants them desperate by the time he gets to them, and then he makes it worse.”

“If this guy is as bad as you say, then how is he still in the Army? How hasn’t he been found out yet?”

Claude looks at her with something almost like pity. “If you don’t think the Army’s corrupted from the top down, I have bad news for you. They’re _all_ like him. Even if there are some who aren’t, they keep their mouths shut. They don’t rock the boat. They keep their heads down, and they let the ones like Romulus do whatever the fuck they want. Because the guys like Romulus are the ones who get the power. I’ve seen officers like him decimate a legion just to prove a _point,_ Eres.”

“Decimate?” She echoes.

“Yeah, kill every tenth soldier—”

“I _know_ what it means,” Eres says, and she still can’t quite wrap her mind around it. “I thought they outlawed that centuries ago.”

“Sure, _officially_ ,” Claude says. “But who’s going to know? The families? They just tell them they died in battle and send them a pension. How would they know anything if no one speaks up? How would _anyone_ know anything if the Army’s the one writing the records?”

“This is—”

“Insane?” Claude finishes. “Yeah. And I’m caught in the middle of it, trying to make sure you don’t get caught up in it. I _told_ you, Eres. I told you I’d always be here. Even if you forget that, I won’t. I never make a promise—”

“You can’t keep,” Eres finishes, feeling hollow. How long had she lived by that very phrase herself? “All this time, you—”

A distant bell rings, echoing in the large chamber of the library. Claude swears under his breath, shoving the journals back into the bag. He stands hurriedly, throwing the bag over one shoulder.

“I have to get back. He could wake up any minute now, and if these are missing when he does…” He doesn’t have to finish the sentence.

Eres stands, too, heart sinking. “Claude, I can’t just _leave_ Skyrim. Not with—”

“Alduin, I know.” Claude nods. “You handle that first, and then you get out. And I’ll—” he looks away, his jaw tightening. “I’ll find some way to deal with Romulus myself, if I have to.”

“If you kill an officer—”

“Yeah, well,” Claude shrugs helplessly. “You can’t live your life on the run forever. And I can’t watch him forever. Something’s gotta give. And besides, you know I’ve always been good at running.”

“From pissed off _shopkeepers_ maybe, not the fucking _Army_!”

Claude shrugs again, almost careless in his affect. “I’ll run to Valenwood. They can’t find me there. Who knows?” He says, and he very quickly steps closer to hug her around the shoulders with one arm. “Maybe we’ll meet up in Valenwood, after this is all over.”

“Don’t be stupid, Claude.” When he doesn’t respond, she fists a hand in his tunic, glaring at him. “ _Don_ _’t be stupid_ ,” she repeats.

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

Claude shakes his head, sending her a wry smile as he pulls away from her. “What did I just say, Er? You know I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

* * *

They don’t talk about it, after.

Claude leaves them in the archives in his wake, and Eres looks at her, and for a moment it seems like she might have said something. Like she might have reached across that divide, wiggled out the wedge Serana had inadvertently driven between them.

Then Eres looks away, and she leaves, too, without saying a word. Not even a good night. Nothing more than a passing glance, unreadable and unknowable.

Serana does not know if Eres believes him. Truthfully speaking, Serana almost wishes that _she_ could believe him. It would be easier, in that way.

It would be easier if she could take him at his word, if she could trust him as Eres seems to. If she could view every word he said only at the surface and not look beneath, deeper where the light doesn’t quite touch it.

It’s possible, Serana thinks, that Claude’s story might have some level of truth to it. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time corruption had rotted an army from the inside out. It most assuredly would not be the first time a man became obsessed with a woman he viewed more as an object to obtain than a woman to love and earn. Serana knew better than most just how many men like that existed out there.

There were men like Yosef, too, of course. Men who were as loyal as they were noble, regardless of birth. Men who grew from young rascals into staunch protectors, like perhaps Claude thought he had. Men who see the violence and debauchery enacted by other men and rise against it, who fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.

Serana is not entirely cynical. She knows that men like that exist. Yosef, to her knowledge, is certainly one of them, and she is sure there must be others. Somewhere. That is merely a point of statistical probability, if nothing else.

There are bad men just as there are bad women, just as there are bad gods. There is evil in everything, if one looks for it, and even when one does not, but the concept of evil is not one that could exist with also the concept of good.

It is not even that she thinks Claude is evil, necessarily. That, she thinks, would be taking it a bit far. Even she doesn’t hate him so much to immediately discount him as just inherently _bad_.

But there are parts of his story that just don’t line up. Parts that just don’t quite make sense. And certainly, sometimes life is like that. Sometimes life itself is not logical, or neat, or orderly, and sometimes things happen that cannot be easily explained.

But - if what Claude said was true… There were too many questions Serana had for him. Questions that Eres might not bother to ask. Because Eres _wants_ to believe him, and so she will not pry and prod at the holes and try to pick them apart. She will turn the other cheek and allow them to hide, plug them up with her own assumptions so that his story is infallible in her mind.

But - it doesn’t make sense.

If what Claude said was true, and what Auria said was _also_ true - then what, exactly, could the timeline have been?

According to Auria, she had chased after General Romulus prior to meeting Eres’ father. She had pursued him, herself - a man who was also pursuing her. So why, then, had Auria been able to live in the Imperial City, right under his nose, for the first four years of Eres’ life, and Romulus had never reached for her when she was well within his grasp?

Romulus _was_ there during that time, at least. That was one thing about Claude and Auria’s stories that did line up. Romulus was present in the capital for at least the first four years, at least until Auria herself was exiled. What happened to him after that, when exactly he left the capital, that Serana does not know. But he had been there. And if his goal, all this time, was simply to make Auria his own - then why had he not done so, while he had the opportunity?

According to Eres, her father had not been especially powerful himself. He had _known_ powerful men, and thus had connections, but he had not been in the seat of power. He had merely been an observer to it, an outsider. If Romulus was as powerful and far-reaching as Claude claimed him to be, then could he not have simply taken Auria for himself, right out from under him? Why would he have allowed another man to marry her, if Auria was what he’d wanted in the first place?

And if he had merely not wanted to kill Eres’ father, why had he not then moved when Auria was exiled? Cyrodiil is not a particularly small country. The distance between the capital and Valenwood is certainly nothing to sneeze at. If he’d wanted to grab her while she was not within Eres’ father’s scope of influence - could he not have done so once she had been exiled from the capital, during her flight to Valenwood? Why had he waited? Why had he allowed her to escape to the one place he knew he would not be able to follow?

And, if what Serana knows of Mirabelle is any indication - Auria supposedly had not gone directly to Valenwood at all. She had come to Mirabelle _first_. Had that happened in Skyrim, at the College? Why would Auria go first to Winterhold, only to ask Mirabelle to transport her south again to Valenwood? What was the _point?_

There were holes, too, in Auria’s own explanation. After her exile, she had returned to Valenwood. What had happened in those twenty years she had remained there? Why had she never sought out Eres before then? Surely, if she had been waiting for Heinrich’s death - could she not have facilitated that herself, if she were so desperate to have her daughter returned? And if she knew of Heinrich’s health, that meant she had likely known of what went on in the capital, even so far away. Romulus had left the capital sometime after, at least ten years ago, by Claude’s estimate, and had not returned.

Auria could have gone back then, if she were so inclined. But then - was it Romulus she had even feared, at that point? Or had it been Heinrich, and the men he’d had in his pocket? And how, too, would Romulus not have known that?

There are far too many questions, and not nearly enough answers.

Serana thinks in circles for so long that her head begins to spin. In the end, she can only retire back to the private wing – and the room she shares with Eres.

Eres, who has not so much as spoken to her since their argument in the archives.

Eres, who sits upon the bed, head in her hands, rubbing tiredly at her temples. She does not look up when Serana enters the room. She does not say a word.

Serana does not, either.

It is not for the lack of wanting to. She has plenty of things she wants to say. She wants to apologize. She wants to say she was right about Claude, that he couldn’t be trusted, too, and that would ruin any apology she could offer her. She wants to say that Eres should take it easy, and get some sleep, and they’ll deal with it in the morning.

She wants to say Eres wanted to go to Valenwood anyways, and now, they have a reason. They could disappear there, if they wanted to, and the world could never call on them again.

There are many things Serana wants to say.

She says none of them.

Any other night would find her pulling Eres into her arms with a hand in her hair, gentle fingers against the tender, sensitive skin at the base of her skull, lulling her to sleep when she could not on her own.

Serana had discovered that little trick not long after their first night together. An absent minded caress, a murmured protest.

_“You’re going to put me to sleep.”_

_“That’s the point, Eres.”_

Eres could probably use that, tonight.

Serana does not know if she would accept it.

So she does not join her on the bed, as she would any other night. She moves instead to the shelf, picks a book from it without checking its title, and settles herself in the chair at the little desk in one corner for the kind of nighttime vigil she has not done in quite some time.

It means she faces away from her. It means she does not have to look at Eres. It means she cannot look at her, not without turning in her chair and making her attention obvious. There is such strained distance between them that it feels as though that attention would be unwanted.

That Serana would be unwanted, in this moment.

She’s not sure how long she spends, staring at the same page, absorbing none of it. Lost in her thoughts. Lost in the questions of the night – of concerns about the truth of Eres’ father’s murder, of Romulus’ intentions, of Claude’s half-believable story. Of how she might bridge this divide between her and Eres, now, when she cannot admit that she was wrong – because she was not. When any apology for speaking ill of Claude would just be another lie for Eres to hold against her.

For Serana to hold against herself.

She does not know how long she sits there, silent and still as a statue, unmoving, her minds leagues away from the present.

She does not know how long it is before she hears Eres sigh aloud in the silence of the room. Still, Serana does not look at her.

“Serana.”

Serana does look at her, then. She takes the sound of her name as permission, as an opening, as an opportunity. She keeps her expression carefully neutral.

Eres is sitting up in the bed again. The angle of the moonlight streaming in through the window has changed. Has it been hours since they returned to this room, so quickly? Had Serana been lost in thought for so long?

Eres looks at her, her features thrown into sharp relief. Her skin seems to glow where the light touches it. She has always seemed just a little bit ethereal, at times.

Even now, when she is drained and tired, when she looks half to sleeping sitting up, when there is a bone-deep exhaustion that dims the color of her eyes, even in moonlight that should have made them shine.

Eres looks away from her, briefly. There is a conflict in her eyes. Like there is something she wants to say, but can’t. Like there is something she feels, but wants to hide.

When she speaks again, her voice is so quiet a whisper that even Serana must strain to hear it.

“Come to bed.”

Serana looks at her. There is nothing she would want more. It feels wrong to be apart from her, at night. It feels wrong to be apart from her ever.

But she closes her book, and sets it carefully on the desk, and she does not move.

“I didn’t think you would want me there.”

Eres closes her eyes. Sighs in a way that is far too world-weary, that speaks depths of her exhaustion.

“I’m tired,” Eres breathes, and the fragility in her voice makes Serana stand, makes her take a step forward before her mind has even caught up with the decision. “I’m so tired.”

She is not talking about sleep, Serana knows.

“I don’t want to be angry with you.” Eres looks at her with something close to pleading. “And I can’t sleep thinking you’re angry with me.”

“I’m not angry with you.” Serana tells her, because it is true. She is not. She has never been angry at her. Frustrated, perhaps. But not angry. Never that. “I only meant—”

Serana sighs. Runs a hand through her hair. Perhaps now isn’t the best time to say it. Perhaps now is the only time to say it. She doesn’t want to upset her all over again. But she also doesn’t want to brush it off, and pretend it never happened.

“I only wanted to keep you safe. If he were to ever hurt you, considering your history with him, you’d be devastated.” Serana explains, as carefully as she is able. “I only wanted to make sure you weren’t jumping into it blindly.”

Eres nods. Even the motion looks tired.

“I’ve been betrayed before.” Eres acknowledges. “I’ve been lied to. I’m being lied to, now.”

Serana holds herself very, very still, bracing for whatever may come out of her mouth next.

But Eres only sighs, shaking her head. “If I held that against everyone, I wouldn’t have any friends. I wouldn't have anyone at all. We all lie, sometimes. We all do bad things, sometimes, for good reasons. Or reasons we think are good. Reasons we can justify.”

“Maybe Claude is lying to me,” Eres says quietly, her eyes downcast. “Everyone else is, too. Including you. And I know,” she says, before Serana can interrupt, “that it’s for my own good. So you say. So Isran says. So all of you say.”

“So why,” Eres asks her, looking up at her, “is it so hard for you to accept the idea that Claude might be lying for a good reason, too?”

Serana’s expression twists. She opens her mouth, to explain herself, to defend herself, and realizes – truthfully, there is nothing she can say. There is no proof that she can offer that Claude is not doing the same thing.

“You have no reason to be jealous of him.” Eres says, into the resulting silence.

Serana feels herself scowl, on pure instinct. “I’m not jealous of him.”

She’s _not_. He’s just – untrustworthy. And a bit of an asshole. And a pervert. And he _left_ Eres, and he hurt her, and _maybe_ she can admit that Eres has a point about the lying thing, but she can still dislike him for his personality. That was fair.

“You are.” Eres says this like it is fact. Like it is not debatable. “I don’t know why.”

Eres beckons, with a hand. Serana hesitates, for just a moment, but she has never been able to say no to her.

She moves to the bed at last, places herself just a few inches apart from her. She is met with a roll of Eres’ eyes, and the girl scoots closer on her own, pulling her down until they lay facing each other, until Eres’ eyes are mere inches from her own and she can see nothing else but the affection in them.

Affection, and a little amusement, and a little tiredness, too, and maybe just the slightest hint of a leftover upset that has not quite faded just yet. But now, it is little more than a memory. Hardly more than a fleeting thought in the back of her mind.

“I’m not,” Serana repeats. Her hand finds Eres’ waist automatically. For a moment, she freezes, uncertain if her touch is welcome just yet – but Eres does not shift away from her, and so she allows herself that touch. She allows herself the warmth of her beneath her fingertips.

“Liar.” Eres mutters, not unkindly. There is a flash of amusement in her eyes, for the briefest of moments. Just as quickly, it is replaced by a knowing, by an understanding of something even Serana does not know. By sympathy, even.

Eres reaches out to her, brushes the hair from her eyes. It takes everything in her not to lean into her touch, not to wish that she could be lulled to sleep as Eres can.

“He was my closest friend, once upon a time.” Eres tells her softly. “He was everything to me, back then. He was all I had. Maybe you’re afraid that having him around again will mean I won’t need you anymore.”

Serana feels her nose wrinkle with disgust at the thought. Unbidden, her mind conjures up images she could have well gone her whole life without. Eres laughs at her, soft and warm in all the right ways.

“Idiot.”

Serana does not even have the presence of mind to be offended, when Eres kisses her. Not when she had wondered how long it might be before Eres felt like kissing her again at all.

“He’s like a brother to me.” Eres tells her when she pulls away. “It’s true that I love him.”

Serana makes a face. Eres pinches her side.

“It’s true that I love him, _in a way_ ,” Eres rephrases, quite pointedly. “How could I not, after all he did for me when I was younger? And that’s…” She looks troubled, for a moment, a distance in her eyes that fades as quickly as it comes. “That’s even without counting everything with Romulus, if it’s true.”

“If it’s true,” Serana repeats.

“If it’s true,” Eres says, holding her gaze, “then I have even more reason to love him. I love Yosef, too, and you don’t hate him.”

“Yosef is _Yosef_ ,” Serana mutters. “He couldn’t be a threat if he tried.”

“And you think Claude can?”

Well, fine, if she _has_ to admit she’s bothered by him, then yes. “You didn’t see the way he looked at you.”

Eres rolls her eyes again. “I’m not blind, Serana. I saw it. It’s all an act. Well,” she shrugs, “mostly, anyways. He _did_ have a lot of girls, when we were kids.”

“Gross.”

“ _But_ ,” Eres continues, “all the girls who walked with him said he was very respectful. Just because he had a lot of them doesn’t mean he was a terrible guy. In fact,” she says, “if he was that bad, do you think word wouldn’t have gotten around eventually?”

“I don’t know,” Serana admits. “That was never something that I cared about growing up.”

Eres shrugs again, helplessly. “Claude is a boy. Boys – sometimes they act stupid, because they feel like they’re supposed to. Claude could be like that, sometimes. He didn’t want any of his friends to know he wasn’t quite the player he pretended to be. Think of his reputation, after all.”

“And what a stellar reputation it is,” Serana drawls. She’s not going to pretend like she understands it. And she still doesn’t like him. No matter what Eres says.

“Just be nice,” Eres says. “Would that be so hard?”

“Yes.” Serana says, very bluntly. Eres narrows her eyes at her, and Serana huffs. “I’m not even nice to Inigo. Give me a break.”

“You’re nice to Yosef.”

“Yosef is _Yosef_ ,” she repeats. Yosef is different. He’s in a league of his own. He also isn’t annoying. “I’ll be… _civil_ ,” she says. “How’s that?”

“Really,” Eres says, doubtfully.

Serana lets out a woeful sigh. “Yes,” she says, quite unhappy about it. “I’ll be civil. For you.”

Eres’ smile is brighter than any moon or star or sun could ever be, and just for a moment, it looks like the world doesn’t rest on her shoulders. Serana will be Claude's bloody best friend, if it makes Eres smile at her like that. 

* * *

The next morning, when Claude approaches her just before his delegation leaves, she does not even glare at him.

“Looks like you two made up,” he notes, his eyes darting in Eres’ direction just across the courtyard. Arngeir had wanted to speak to her before they left for Whiterun, and it seems Claude has taken the opportunity to ambush her while Eres is distracted elsewhere.

“So it seems.” Serana says, and she says nothing more. She said she would be civil. That doesn't mean she has to be friendly.

“Watch out for her.”

Serana does glare at him, then. “I hardly need you to tell me that.”

Claude nods. “Good,” he says, and he sounds like means it. When he looks at Eres across the snowy courtyard, his expression sobers.

“I dropped the torch a long time ago,” he says quietly. “I was hoping someone else would pick it up for me, one day, if I couldn’t. I worried,” he admits, “that she’d be alone all this time.”

Serana looks at him, and there is such a profound solemnity to his expression that even she cannot find it in her to be annoyed by him. He looks at Eres like she is someone he has lost.

“She was always alone, you know.” He tells her quietly. “That’s how we became friends. She was always alone, and I felt bad for her. And then I felt bad for feeling bad, and I didn’t want to be friends with her just out of pity. So I bothered her, and bothered her,” he shoots her a quick, wry smile. “I annoyed the crap out of her until she let me in.”

“But,” he says, “I was the only one she ever let in. Nobody else. So I worried,” he admits, shrugging. “That she’d never let anyone else in. I don’t really know how she managed to find a vampire to let in, of all things,” he says, “but I’m glad she did. However you guys met. However – _this_ happened between you. I’m glad it did. She deserves it.”

Suddenly, Claude lets out a loud sigh, making a show of dusting the snow from the front of his cloak, of tapping the snow from his boots.

“Anyway,” he says to her, and he offers her his hand. “Consider this me passing the torch off to you. I’m trusting you with it.”

Serana briefly considers letting his hand hang there stupidly. Just walking away with a roll of her eyes and pretending he doesn’t exist.

But Eres did ask her to try, and she did say she would be civil, and if she pretends not to hate him for a moment, she has to admit – he at least seemed to mean well, if nothing else.

She grabs his hand politely, and shakes it. There. That is her good deed for the day. She should be applauded.

By the brief flash of amusement on Claude’s face, she is almost certain he’s sensed her reluctance, and seems to find it funny. She narrows her eyes at him, and he only smiles in return.

“She loves you, by the way.” Claude tells her. Whatever amusement had been in his gaze is gone now. He means what he says now as much as he could mean anything. “In case you ever had any doubts. Or have them in the future. She loves you.” He says this like he knows it. Like it is as much of a fact as the color of her hair or her skin or her eyes. Like it is just a part of her that she could never hide.

“She loves you more than you know. Take that from me. I can still read her like a book. Girl’s head over heels for you.”

His hand tightens around her own, suddenly. If she were human, it might have been just tight enough to be painful. It feels like little more than just increased pressure, compared to her vampiric hardiness, but the meaning in it is clear next to the sudden sharpness of his eyes.

“And if you ever hurt her, I’ll kill you.”

Serana smiles tightly back at him. She squeezes her own hand until she feels his bones creak between her fingers. Until he near crumples in the snow, yelping from the pain.

“ _Serana_ ,” Serana hears, scoldingly, from across the courtyard. When she looks up, there is Eres, still quite too far away to stop her, but looking at her disapprovingly all the same.

Serana releases him. “He threatened me.” She says, in her defense.

Eres rolls her eyes, plainly hearing it despite the distance. She points between the two of them, looking not unlike a scolding mother at two very unruly children. Serana can almost hear her in her mind: _Behave._

Claude straightens, and shakes out his hand with a deep, pained grimace on his face.

Serana favors him with little more than a dispassionate glance. “I wouldn’t make a habit of threatening vampires, if I were you.”

“Noted,” he croaks, hissing as he tests the mobility of his fingers. “Just doing my duty.”

Right. _Like a brother_ , and all. Allegedly.

Serana spots Romulus beckoning with a hand, and has never been happier to see a potential enemy.

“Looks like your _duty_ is calling you.”

Claude looks, too, and lets out a long sigh. “He could die yesterday and it wouldn’t be quick enough,” he mutters.

With a shake of his head, Claude trudges off to join the delegation of Imperial soldiers. He looks for a moment like he might have stopped to speak to Eres, but thinks better of it. He pretends not to see her at all.

Soon, Claude and the delegation have disappeared down the slope, the first to set out that morning. Ulfric and his own men will soon follow, Serana imagines, and she and Eres will not be far behind.

Speak of the devil, and she shall appear, Serana muses internally, watching patiently as Eres picks her way through the snow to her.

“Ready?” Serana asks her.

Eres makes a face. She takes another step, sinks several inches, and stops where she stands. Serana, taking pity on her, closes the distance for her, chuckling.

“What did he say to you?”

“Hm?” Serana contemplates where Eres would allow them to take the shortcut. If they cut to the other side of the mountain, they could be a lot closer to Riverwood rather than having to go through that pass again.

“Nothing too important.”

“You threatened him.”

Serana, very cheekily, leans over to kiss her. “Yes,” she says, between kisses. “I did.”

Eres pushes her away, making a face. “Don’t kiss me while you’re maiming my friends.”

“Stop making such stupid friends, then.”

Eres _almost_ breaks. Almost. She just manages not to laugh, and somehow looks more annoyed for having been tempted to laugh at all. Like it's Serana's fault she's funny.

“That’s not funny.” Serana raises a brow at that, dubious. “You said you’d try.”

“I did try,” Serana argues. “I didn’t hurt him permanently.”

Eres lets out a weary sigh. “I set the bar too low, didn’t I.”

“Well, I can certainly still go kill him, if you’d like.”

Eres scowls at her, and Serana laughs, and she leans down and kisses her until Eres looks at her with fond exasperation rather than annoyance. Serana might have kissed her until she forgot who Claude was entirely, if they were alone.

But they are out in the open, and there are people around, and now isn’t quite the right place or time for it. They seem to have a habit of doing that, Serana has noticed, and she's getting quite tired of the interruptions. 

But maybe, when they get to Whiterun… Perhaps she might be able to convince the Jarl to let them use that guest room again. It’s what they deserve, really. It’s certainly what Eres deserves.

One day, Serana will make sure to give Eres everything she could have ever wished for, and more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took fucking forever my bad


	24. Liminal Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LISTEN IM REALLY SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG BUT LIKE,   
> it's a Lot and also i hurt my back and i've not been able to sit for like 4 days don't kill me

He wishes he could say he felt lighter for it. That getting it all off his chest had helped him. That seeing Eres again, after nearly ten years, alive and well and - well, _happy_ might be pushing it, just now, but she was at least safe, and she had people around her who cared for her - had helped. People around her that _she_ cared for, people who knew her. Not people she held at a distance and put on airs for, but real, tangible connections.

He wishes he could say he felt better for it.

Maybe he would have. Under any other circumstances. Maybe if he’d never been chosen by Romulus, maybe if he’d just happened to meet her again by chance. Maybe then, he might have been able to feel a little better about it.

But if he hadn’t been chosen by him…

Claude clenches his jaw tight to keep his face neutral. Romulus glances at him, all the same. He pretends not to notice.

If Romulus hadn’t chosen him, then Eres would never have known how dangerous he could be to her. How dangerous he likely would be to her, once given the chance.

“Boy.”

Claude presses the tines of his fork down into the plate in front of him. He keeps his hand as relaxed as possible while he does it. He can’t show his irritation here.

 _Boy_ , he called him. Like he’s still sixteen. Romulus has never bothered to call him by his name. He’s not even sure the man’s ever bothered to learn it.

“Hand me my bag.” Romulus points.

Claude looks. He pretends he does not know what is in it. He gets up from the stump he’d sat on for their break in riding, and walks as casually as he is able to Romulus’ horse. He removes the bag from the saddle deftly, turns, and walks right back to that stump.

Wordlessly, Claude sits, and hands the bag to him. He does not allow any of the tension in his form to bleed into his expression.

Romulus does not smile. He takes the bag from him, sets it between his knees, and starts to rummage through it, right there out in the open.

It isn’t entirely unusual, for Romulus to rummage through his things at such stops and breaks in a march. More than once, in the past eight years, Claude had woken to the man searching fervently through his trunk and bags, counting and cataloging each item. For a man who so easily forgot things, Romulus has always been paranoid - often, he fears he will have forgotten something on the road or in a tavern, and every so often, he will go through it all to make sure he has all that he should.

That Romulus chooses to go through them now is no immediate cause for concern. Claude goes about his own business, thoughts wandering to Cyrodiil once more. He has thought of Cyrodiil more times just in the past week than he has in years. Meeting Eres again has done nothing but dredge up pieces of his past he had long since buried and forgotten.

“Ahh…” Romulus murmurs. Claude glances at him out of the corner of his eye, at the sketchbook the man has opened in his lap.

This is the one Claude hadn’t shown Eres. The one that had made him certain it had been Romulus who’d killed Heinrich.

In the center of that page, there is another drawing of the mother - Claude does not know her name, for Romulus has never called her anything other than _‘that elf bitch’_ or _‘wood witch’_.

But it is Eres’ mother, that is for certain, and it is one of dozens, if not hundreds, of drawings just like it. But there is another drawing on that page, one far less detailed than the mother’s - in simple black charcoal rather than the fine, careful watercolor of the portrait in the center.

It is the portrait of a man. A man with a sallow face and gaunt cheeks, with a heavyset, dark brow and darker eyes. The man’s hair is cropped short, shorter than Claude’s, but it is no neater for its length. There is the slope of a long, pointed nose, and a mouth pressed tight with thin lips. His facial hair is trimmed, but somewhat disheveled, and there are little white-and-grey marks within it to show his age, just like the hair just beside each temple.

Claude knew this man, once. His beard had been kept shorter then, more neatly trimmed, and he hadn’t had so much grey. But he knows the set of that brow, the darkness of that gaze. It is Heinrich, Eres’ father - a man who is now long since dead.

A man who’s portrait Heinrich had marked with a single drop of red paint, right over where his heart might have been. That red paint has a single line through it, sending a thin streak of dark, crimson paint across charcoal, cutting the man’s portrait in half.

Romulus turns the page. Again, and again, and again, until he comes upon one that is blank. From the satchel at his hip, he produces a thin, carefully closed metal tin. From it, he removes his finest charcoal - one with a near needle-point tip, delicately sharpened. The one he reserved for his most careful sketches. The ones he turned into paintings.

Romulus smiles when he draws. Were it not for the subject matter of his art, it might have been the only time he looks halfway human. The only time he looks to truly enjoy anything at all.

But Claude watches the sweep of the charcoal across the page, and he feels nothing but dread curling up inside him.

Romulus has drawn the Mother so many times that he can draw a fair likeness of her in mere minutes. The ovular shape of the head, the brow and eyes, the sweep of a nose and cheeks and the bow of her lips - he could have a passing likeness of her in just seconds, it seemed, so practiced was he at drawing her after so many years.

Romulus’ strokes now are similarly familiar, and yet - at moments, he is careful. At moments, his hand pauses, the tip of the charcoal pressed against the page, and his smile purses into a frown of concentration. After a moment, his hand shifts, and he adjusts, and the next line he draws is not one he does with familiarity, but with the careful slowness of novelty, of something he has not quite drawn before.

If nothing else, Romulus is an artist. He is skilled at this thing he does. Perhaps, in a different life, he might have become some kind of painter. Even Claude must admit the man had talent, in this. It takes little more than minutes for Claude to see the differences.

The differences in the shape of the head - just a tad rounder where the Mother’s is longer, the rounded, stubborn chin instead of the fine point of femininity. A smaller nose, but the same full lips. The youthful softness still in the angles of her features, not sharp but rather tapered, the face of someone growing into womanhood rather than settled into it.

It is not the Mother that Romulus draws, then. It is Eres, in all her likeness. He even captures the crease in her brow, the fierce determination in her eyes. He draws her from memory, and yet somehow, it is more accurate than even the picture of Eres that Claude can call into his mind.

“Cut from the same fine cloth…” Romulus murmurs as he draws, his lips curling into a pleased smile. “And what do you think, boy?” Romulus looks at him, then, eyes sharp and all-knowing. “A good thing we came all this way, after all.”

Claude shrugs as carelessly as he can. “She looks like her,” he admits, keeping his voice light and unbothered. He mustn’t let on that he knows Eres, even now. “Could pass for her sister.”

“Daughter,” Romulus corrects. “You know it must be. Your memory is better than that. You can’t have forgotten. Just as I have not forgotten. The one thing I shall always remember…” For a moment, when Romulus reaches for his paints, the brush hovers over crimson red.

Claude watches, and he does not breathe. Romulus mixes the red with a bit of black, a bit of orange, until it is a color not unlike that of the dark russet brown of Eres’ hair.

“You can never count on just how much one remembers.” Romulus says, and his brush moves idly in the sweeps of strokes that color Eres’ hair upon the page. “Can never count on what they might know, on what they might not.”

Claude brings his mug to his mouth, lifting it to drink so that he might hide any trepidation in his expression at Romulus’ words.

“It is always best to assume they do know. If you operate under the assumption that everyone else knows more than you do, you will be more careful. Less likely to slip up,” Romulus says. He is no longer smiling. “Less likely to be suspected. Less likely to be caught.”

Claude swallows. He sets his mug back down. He focuses upon the jerky in his hands, pretends that this lecture is no different from any other that Romulus has ever given him. He must, or Romulus will know. Perhaps he already does - but if he does not, Claude refuses to confirm it.

“Do you know what a harrier is?”

Of course he does. Romulus has told him more than once. “Hunting birds.”

“Hunting hounds, too,” Romulus adds. “The harrier trails its prey. Hunts by scent. Can always be trusted to flush out the pheasant in the brush. They’re named for the birds. Harrier. Perhaps _hunter_ is not adequate. Perhaps _agitator_ is more accurate. Not a pounce, but a feint. Not a bite, but a nip. One who agitates, and agitates, until one has no choice but to respond in kind. But to reveal themselves.”

Romulus cleans his brush. He lightens the brown on the palette laid upon his knee. He takes the brush to Eres’ skin, next, and his small, satisfied smile returns.

“I was a bit of a Harrier myself, once upon a time.” Romulus glances at him, quirking a brow. His smile sharpens into a smirk. “What do you think, Boy? Am I a bird, or a hound?”

* * *

“We’re ready, Dragonborn.” That is the first thing Jarl Balgruuf says to her as she approaches, rising from his throne to greet her. “Just say the word.”

“You’re ready now?” Eres glances towards the high windows on the castle walls, and the orange-red glow of the light filtering through them. It is not quite sunset yet, but it will be soon. To call a dragon to Dragonsreach so close to nightfall is something she would not have expected Balgruuf to agree to.

“As I promised, my men stand ready.” Balgruuf says, and he does not miss a beat. His eyes flicker to follow her gaze, but he does not seem cowed by the approach of dusk. “The great chains are oiled. We wait on your word. Whether that be tonight,” he says, “or tomorrow. We are ready when you are.”

Eres does not so much as blink. The faster she is done with this, the better—and the less time she will have to question her decisions. “I’m ready now. Let’s get this over with.”

Balgruuf nods. “My men know what to do. Make sure you do your part,” he says, even as he turns, Irileth at his side, making for the stair behind the throne room that will lead, Eres supposes, to the great trap that Dragonsreach had been named for all those centuries ago. “I am putting my city in your hands, Dragonborn. Do not make me regret it.”

Eres hopes that she won’t, but it’s not something she can promise. She has no idea if this will work. She will just have to hope that Paarthurnax was right. That he’d given her the name of the dragon who would be most likely to be swayed.

The stairs lead them to a landing that is utterly nondescript in its simplicity. Eres imagines, if she were to follow the length of the halls on either side, that she might find more of the quarters housed here on the second floor, perhaps even the Jarl’s own.

Aside from the parallel halls on either side of that room, there is naught but a single table situated in the center with a map laid over it. Several Imperial soldiers huddled over it glance up at them when they approach, but make no move to greet them. Opposite of that table is a set of double doors taller even than Dragonsreach’s main gate, reaching so high above her head that Eres is not sure how they might have found trees tall enough to supply the wood to build them.

“The doors.” Jarl Balgruuf orders, and a guard on either side of the doors moves to a winch at either end. With the cranking of the winch, the doors shudder before them, and begin to creak open at an agonizingly slow pace.

Balgruuf turns to Eres as they wait, his face creased with a deep frown. “You _do_ have a plan for luring a dragon here, don’t you?” He asks skeptically.

Eres’ breath comes slow and measured, carefully even in a way that does not match the racing of her heart behind her ribcage. She can feel the leap of her pulse at her neck, bounding beneath the skin.

As if summoned by the sound of it, Serana’s hand closes around her own in a silent gesture of support. Eres wishes she could say that it settles her. It feels more like a crutch than a salve.

“I do,” Eres answers. She swallows thickly when Balgruuf turns away, nodding to himself.

She does - at least for calling Odahviing there to begin with. But as far as what happens after that? She has no fucking idea. How is she going to convince one of Alduin’s allies to turn on him?

Even worse - what happens after that, if she manages it? Is she even ready for this?

Her hand tightens around Serana’s, gripping cool fingers tight within her own. Perhaps too tightly, even, but Serana is hardier than most - she doesn’t complain. Serana’s thumb brushes over her skin all the same, coaxing her to relax. It does nothing to help, this time.

Warm, pleasant air drifts through the doors as the open, as finally there is enough space that they can walk through and enter the room beyond it.

‘Room’ does not quite cover it.

If Eres had thought the ceilings within the palace proper were high, those within Dragonsreach’s trap were incomparable. They reached so high over her head that she could have been ten times as tall as she is now and perhaps still never have reached the ceiling. The expansive room is as wide as it is tall, constructed of stone instead of wood or clay, and at the far end, the room is left entirely open to the sky beyond, with a small balcony that overlooks the city itself.

Eres turns her eyes upward, spotting the chains and metal straps that dangle almost precariously from the ceiling, swaying in the light summer breeze. The clink of the chain is the only sound beyond the wind itself and the nervous chatter of several guards milling about the area, hands closed into fists around well-used bows, or shifting uncertainly near the contraptions Eres can only guess would drop the trap from the ceiling.

Balgruuf steps just ahead of her, calling the attention of his men.

“You remember the plan,” he says to them, sounding much more confident than Eres feels. “The Dragonborn will call the dragon here. When it comes, we will draw it into the trap from the balcony—” he looks pointedly at the group of guards listening attentively near the open end of the room, just near that very balcony. “Gain his attention, but don’t go out of your way. We don’t want anyone dying from this, understood?”

Murmurs, all around. Some more confident than others. Eres cannot even blame them for their doubts. She is feeling no better about it than they are.

“Alright, men. To your places. Prepare yourselves.” The men voice their assent, and like a well oiled machine, spread themselves across the balcony and the room just behind it. Several men take postings just near each of the cinches for the trap above their heads, hands hovering at the ready near the levers that will release it, eyes hard and determined. “Dragonborn,” Balgruuf turns to her. “We are ready when you are.”

Serana squeezes her hand. “You can do this, Eres,” she hears, too softly for the humans to have heard it.

Whether she can call Odahviing is not what she’s concerned about. She’s worried she won’t be able to convince him. But what else can she do? If this is the only way, then—she will do it. She will do whatever it takes.

Eres allows herself to hold onto that hand a moment longer. Just a moment. She cannot rely on Serana for everything. When she releases it, she feels the woman take a single step back to leave the floor to her. To allow Eres to do what she needs to do.

Serana trusts in her. Serana believes in her, more than Eres believes in herself half the time. If Serana can believe that she’s capable of it, then—she should be able to, too.

Eres takes a deep, steadying breath, and releases Serana’s hand at last. With no small amount of trepidation, she paces forward, past the guard standing at the trap’s release levers on either side, and finally to the balcony itself.

The guards step aside as she approaches, each of them eying her warily. Only one guard does not take the chance to take several steps back. This one leans close, informs her that the guard will be ready to fire on her command - and he, too, drops to the background behind her.

Above her, the sky seems almost too idyllic for such an event. Everywhere she looks, there is nothing but the soft, warm colors of approaching sunset, bathing the city below in an orange-red glow that makes all of it seem almost dream-like and ethereal.

For a moment, Eres only looks at the city below, at the small figures of people she can see still milling about in the Cloud district and beyond, even the view of several Companions loitering in front of their legendary hall.

If she fails here—if she calls Odahviing here, and the trap fails, and she cannot control him—they might all be dead, not so long from now. The city could be razed to the ground, set aflame and left to smolder through the night.

Whiterun could be another Fellburg, if she is not careful.

Eres cannot allow herself to fail here. She is so _close_ to him. She can feel it. She is so close to the end of it all. To the end of everything, perhaps.

Unbidden, a thought comes to her. _Not long, now._ Not with bitterness or resentment, or even resignation. Just… Acceptance.

Not long, now. It won’t be long at all, now.

Eres opens her mouth, draws breath that burns into her lungs, and calls her voice to boom so loudly that the crack of it is sharp in her throat, sharper even than the crack of what sounds almost like thunder as the Shout of his name erupts from her lungs.

At first, it seems like nothing has happened. For a long, painful moment, Eres waits, and the guards wait, and Serana and Balgruuf wait, and there is nothing but the sound of the wind around them, the dim ring of muffled voices down in the markets below as the city winds down for the night. At first, Eres fears that it will not have worked at all, and she will have gone through so much to get here for nothing.

She feels it before she hears it, somehow. She could not have explained it if she tried, but she _feels_ him, when he comes. She feels the shift in the world around her as he is summoned to her, as his presence makes itself known in her mind. It is several long seconds after that strange, knowing feeling that she hears his distant roar, that she hears the flap of his great, leathery wings upon the wind.

The dragons at the lake in the Forgotten Valley had been laughable compared to Durnehviir. Durnehviir was leaner than Paarthurnax, and not quite as tall. Paarthurnax himself was lean in the way that old things are, in the way that it is more the memory of strength in their bones than strength itself.

Odahviing is bigger than both of them. She can tell that even from a distance, long before he reaches her. The crimson red of his scaled hide is brilliant where Paarthurnax’s had dulled with age, where Durnehviir’s had sloughed and rotted away. Odahviing might have given even Alduin himself a run for his coin, if it were to be measured on size alone.

Eres raises her bow, draws it as he nears—the great beast banks right, wings spreading to speed. Eres traces the red of his form as he dives just to the right of the balcony and then swoops into a hard, sharp turn. She looses an arrow almost on instinct as she drops back and away as the dragon pulls up at the last second, baring his wide chest and thrusting his back talons forward — and Eres watches, helpless, as the guard who had spoken to her is swept away right in front of her, as Odahviing pulls up and climbs high into the sky above and she hears a cry of fear.

Odahviing opens his talons as he climbs ever higher for a second pass, and Eres’ eyes catch upon the yellow cloak whipping as it plummets to the ground below.

Eres does not hear the body hit the ground. She does not have to. She hears the sound of his scream, and its abrupt, pained end.

“Eres!” Serana’s voice carries to her over the wind, a moment before a volley of ice sails just past her shoulder. “Bring him to ground!”

Eres blinks. _Dragonrend_. How had she forgotten? Was she so out of sorts? If she’d remembered to use it sooner, would that guard still be dead now?

Eres does not have time to consider it. She lets the shout burst from her lungs even as she draws another arrow, satisfied as she feels the power latch onto him, hook into his very soul and pull him toward her. Toward the balcony. Toward the trap.

“Get back! Get back!” Balgruuf calls, just over her shoulder. “We need to trap it, not kill it!”

Eres drops back, several feet at a time, the guards dropping back behind her. She feels the ghost of Serana’s hand at her back, the chill of cold air as ice sails past her left ear.

Odahviing drops to the balcony, the very ground quaking beneath the impact of his weight.

“Back!” Eres orders, not quite fool enough to look over her shoulder to make sure they listen. “Pull back!”

Eres slows, firing arrows at the thickest point of his hide until his eyes fix upon her, until she sees his pupils narrow with intent. He drops to all fours, stalking forward, wingspan so wide that it is a shock they fit within the width of the open wall at all.

His head passes the archway. His neck. His shoulders. She keeps his gaze upon her, drawing him ever backward.

 _“Dovahkin_ ,” he rumbles, eyes narrowing. His great maw opens, his chest expanding as he breathes in, and Eres feels heat licking at her cheeks.

“Serana, ward!”

She hears Serana swear violently just behind her, just as Odahviing rears back to roar his displeasure with her in flames rather than speech. The flames reach just inches before her nose before they impact something solid yet invisible, arcing out to either side around her harmlessly.

“Now, quickly!” Balgruuf calls from somewhere behind her, and Eres hears the foreboding clamor of metal against metal.

She drops back several paces at once and well out of the way of the contraption as the guards on either side throw the levers. From above, the metal bands of the trap crash downward, pinning the dragon to the ground, a collar snapping around a wide neck, chains pulling taut around each of its trapped limbs.

In an instant, the dragon is neutralized, and yet Eres hesitates, fearing that he might simply set them all aflame for their audacity—but then she spots the orange glow at the corner of her eye, engraved into the wrought iron of the collar clamped around the dragon’s neck.

It takes nearly all of her concentration to see it when she looks at it directly, but it is there—runes, inscribed in the metal, invisible to the naked eye but _powerful._ Eres would bet that whatever enchantment is engraved upon that metal is the only reason why Odahviing has not attempted to fry them all already.

“I…I think it’s holding,” murmurs one of the guards, sounding as awed as Eres feels.

Just in front of her, she sees Odahviing’s form sag beneath the weight of the brace that pins him to the ground. He raises his head to fix piercing golden eyes upon her, not without some small amount of begrudging respect.

 _“Zu’u bonaar. You went to a great deal of trouble to put me in this… humiliating position.”_ Odahviing raises his head then, his lips stretching to form a terrifying imitation of a smile.

 _“Hind siiv Alduin, hmm?”_ He asks, his voice turning almost coy. _“No doubt you want to know where to find Alduin?”_

Eres’ brow furrows. She almost asks how he’d known - but why else would she have gone through the trouble of trapping him here?

“That’s right,” she says instead. “Where is he? You’re his ally, aren’t you? You should know.”

Odahviing rumbles a thoughtful hum. _“Ally…”_ He chuckles. _“Rinik vazah. An apt phrase. Alduin bovul. One reason I came to your call was to test your Thu’um for myself. Many of us have begun to question Alduin’s lordship, whether his Thu’um was truly the strongest. We have heard of your… encounter,”_ he says carefully, _“upon the Sacred Mountain.”_

“You’re not loyal to Alduin?” Eres asks, surprised despite herself.

 _“We are loyal to who deserves our loyalty,”_ Odahviing answers. _“We doubted only among ourselves, of course. Mu ni meyye. None were yet ready to openly defy him.”_

“And now?” Eres asks. “Will you tell me where he is, then?”

 _“Unslaad krosis,”_ Odahviing murmurs. _“Innumerable pardons. I digress. He has traveled to Sovngarde to regain his strength. Devouring the sillesejoor - the souls of the mortal dead. A privilege he jealousy guards…”_

“Wait,” Serana steps beside her, plainly done with keeping to the background. “You’re telling us Alduin is, what, siphoning strength through Sovngarde’s lost souls?”

“Lost souls?” Eres turns to look quizzically at Serana. She might never have been particularly religious, but she knows enough of Sovngarde through her father’s ramblings - it was where the honorable Nords-men went when they died, especially if they died honorably in battle. She had never heard anything about _lost souls_ there.

“Sovngarde is—well, like a lot of the Gods’ realms, really.” Serana says, sighing. “What _you_ _’re_ thinking of is probably the _Hall_ of Sovngarde - paradise, in essence. But Sovngarde itself as a realm encompasses much more than that. It’s said that, before a soul can reach the Hall, they must first traverse the Valley of Mists—if they’re found worthy, the mist will part for them and show them the way. Or they’ll be guided by another spirit - there’s a few different tellings of it. One way or another, only the worthy ever reach the Hall of Sovngarde. The rest are just… stuck in limbo,” she shrugs helplessly. “Doomed to wander the valley for eternity.”

Eres looks to Odahviing, frowning. “These are the souls Alduin is feeding on to gain strength?”

Odahviing does an approximation of a nod, or as best as he can manage, trapped as he is. _“The more time he has to gather his strength, the more souls are lost to his hunger - and the harder he will be for you to defeat, Dovahkiin. Your Thu’um is strong, but will it be strong enough to face Alduin with the power of thousands of souls behind him?”_

Alduin is already strong enough, Eres thinks. “How am I supposed to get to him if he’s in _Sovngarde_?” She can think of one way, but it certainly wouldn’t be the most effective. Or the smartest. And that’s even assuming she would go to Sovngarde at all. “Is there some way I can summon him, like I did you?”

Odahviing shakes his large head. _“No. But, you may reach Sovngarde to face him. His door to Sovngarde is at Skuldafn, one of his ancient fanes high in the eastern mountains. Mindoraan, pah ok middovahhe lahvraan til. I surely do not need to warn you that all his remaining strength is marshaled there. Zu’u lost ofan hin laan.”_ Odahviing catches her eye meaningfully. _“Now that I have answered your question, you will allow me to go free?”_

“Not so fast,” Serana says quickly. “I don’t trust this.” This, she says more to Eres than Odahviing. “You, going to Sovngarde? Eres, you know that I wouldn’t be able to join you there, don’t you?”

“What?”

 _“Vampire,”_ Odahviing says. _“Her kind is not welcome in Aetherius. She would be stepping into her own destruction.”_

 _Right._ Because Sovngarde was in Aetherius, not in an Oblivion realm. Serana - or anyone like her who was undead or similarly touched by a Daedric Prince - would likely be smited as soon as they stepped foot in it. Serana could _attempt_ to follow her into Sovngarde, if she’d like to be turned to ash as soon as she crossed the threshold.

“There has to be some other way we can bring Alduin back to _Nirn_ , and fight him on equal ground.”

Odahviing tsks. _“Do not let your heart ruin your mind. Alduin is strongest within Sovngarde, and he grows stronger still. He will not come to you here on Nirn, no matter what you may do. He will wait for you to come to him - or, until he has so much power that you would have no chance of stopping him in any plane.”_

Eres can’t take that chance. If she lets Alduin just run rampant in Sovngarde as much as he likes, how many souls would he devour in his quest for power? Sure, they were all technically already dead—but they were still people, in a way. They were still living, thinking, feeling entities, if they were anything like the souls she had encountered in Coldharbour. She can’t just allow Alduin to use all of them to fuel his own power, and then damn herself to go along with it. Waiting for Alduin to come back to Nirn is not an option.

Odahviing is right. She will have to go to him.

 _“Krosis. There is one detail about Skuldafn I neglected to mention. You have the Thu’um of a Dovah. But without the wings of one, you will never set foot in Skuldafn.”_ Odahviing just never had any good news, did he? Eres’ frown deepens. _“Of course,”_ he adds, dropping his head to look at her with poorly concealed interest, _“I could fly you there. But not while imprisoned like this.”_

“You can’t _possibly_ trust him, Eres.” Serana scoffs, turning away from him. “He’s just telling you whatever he thinks will get him out of this trap.”

“Maybe,” Eres admits, but she is not as certain about it as Serana seems to be. “Or he could be telling the truth.” In fact - she’s pretty sure that he is. She doesn’t know _how_ she knows. But she knows.

“Eres - you can’t be serious.” Serana stares at her, her incredulity written plain on her face. “This is _Alduin_ we’re talking about. Even if we assume that everything he says is true - which I don’t think we should - that would mean you facing him _alone_. I can’t go to Sovngarde with you. And I’m half-inclined to believe no one else would be able to, either. Aetherius or not, it’s still a realm intended for the souls of the dead - someone who’s living would likely not have a great time in there. The only reason _you_ might be alright in there is that your soul isn’t actually mortal to begin with.”

“It’s not the best option,” Eres agrees. She holds up a hand when Serana stares at her like she’s grown a second head - alright, that was a bit of an understatement. She knows that. “But it’s the only one we have.”

“No, it _isn_ _’t_ ,” Serana insists. “We have resources, in case you’ve forgotten. You have connections with several very powerful mages, not even counting myself. If there’s anyone who might be able to find a way to bring Alduin back to Nirn, you can guarantee that Auria and Mirabelle and my mother might just be the ones capable of doing it. That’s not counting the rest of the College, who would likely be just as willing to help if they knew it meant saving their own asses, at least.”

Eres’ expression twists. There is an uncomfortable tickle at the back of her neck, just at the top of her spine. Something tells her that the College is not an option. That waiting at all is not an option. If she is going to confront Alduin at all and have any chance of defeating him, she needs to do it _now_. Who knew how long it would take for their mothers and Mirabelle and the College to come up with some other solution, if they were able to at all? How much stronger would Alduin get in the meantime?

How many more souls would be lost to him, for her hesitation?

She doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for a better option that may never come.

“We can’t count on that being a solution,” Eres says tightly. “This is the only way.”

Serana’s brows meet sharply over eyes that flash with sudden indignance. “It’s _not_ the only way. It’s only the _only way_ because you’re refusing to consider anything else! Be reasonable about this. You can’t trust _him_ as far as you can throw him,” Serana says, gesturing vaguely in Odahviing’s direction, who does not so much as blink at the accusation, “but at least you can be sure that _we_ would try to come up with the best solution for _you_.”

 _“There is only one choice.”_ Odahviing says. _“Onikaan koraav gein miraad. It is wise to recognize when there is only one path open to you.”_ His eyes turn to Eres then. _“Each moment wasted here in Nirn is another moment Alduin has to gain power to use against you. If you truly wish to defeat him, you will have to make your decision quickly. You can trust me. Zu’u ni tahrodis. Alduin has proven himself unworthy to rule. I go my own way now.”_

Eres looks between Odahviing and Serana. She knows what _she_ wants to do.

Well—perhaps _wants_ is a strong word for it. She doesn’t _want_ to do any of it. But she knows what she _has_ to do. The problem is that she doesn’t think Serana would allow her to, under any circumstances. Serana _is_ stronger than her, and faster than her, and a far more accomplished mage than her, at that. If Serana really wanted to stop her, especially if she felt that doing so would save Eres’ life - she could, and she would. She will have to find another way to get around it, if she cannot convince Serana to see it from her perspective. 

But, if she wants to do that, she will need time. Away from the public eye. Away from Odahviing.

She turns to him, feeling anxiety crawling beneath her skin. “Odahviing. Would you be willing to wait?” His expression shifts in a manner that feels almost like the raising of a dubious brow. “I—have to think about this. I just need a bit of time. Whatever my decision ends up being - you’ll be released.”

Odahviing rumbles low in his chest. _“And why do you not release me now, then, if I am to be released either way?”_

She levels him with her most unimpressed look. “I’m not stupid. If I release you before then, you could just fuck off and not make good on your end of the deal. And you’d never answer my call again.” From Odahviing’s answering chuckle, she knows she’s right. “I’m asking you to be polite.”

_“So I shall remain, one way or another.”_

“…Yes,” she says, and hates that she feels guilty about it. Odahviing has probably killed thousands in his life time. She shouldn’t feel bad about trapping him in a dragon-yoke for a few hours. “I’ll return once I’ve made my decision.”

 _“Make haste, Dovahkiin.”_ Odahviing calls at her back. _“You are running out of time.”_

And doesn’t she know it.

* * *

Balgruuf again lends them the use of the guest room, and in short order, they are alone.

Eres can see it in Serana’s eyes when she looks at her. She can see the determination there, the obstinance, the sharpness in her gaze that says she wants to talk about it – about Sovngarde, and _now_. She is not stupid. She sees it.

She pretends that she doesn’t. She favors Serana with a tired smile as they enter, excuses herself to the washroom before Serana can start a discussion that she is not yet ready to have. She has no answers for her. Not any that Serana would like to hear. 

It is only once the door closes and latches shut behind her that Eres allows herself to let go of it. To let go of the peace she has projected since High Hrothgar. To let go of the airs she has had to maintain since then. There had been the tiniest sliver of hope in her, still. For a time. Odahviing, and what news he had brought her, had only served to confirm what she had already feared. So she lets go. She allows herself to feel it. She allows herself to cry, just a little.

She does cry, then. She allows the tears to fall, unbidden, silent in a secret grief. They must be silent, for she cannot allow Serana to hear her.

Eres runs the bath. She undresses. She climbs in, and settles herself against one end, dropping her head back until she looks up at the vaulted ceiling above her head. The heat of the water sinks into her muscles in a way that might have been a comfort on any other night, but on this night - this night, the heat only releases a tension that returns as soon as it leaves her.

Her chest feels heavy with the weight of what will soon happen. Not long at all, now. 

An end to this. An end to Alduin. An end to a world-ending prophecy.

An end to herself, maybe.

It is more likely than not.

Eres is not stupid.

She looks at her hands, raising them above the water to peer at the pruned skin of the pads of her fingers. From her hands, to her wrists, to the thin strikes of brown skin against the white porcelain of the basin, wavering beneath the water. The thinness of her legs, too, and the way she can press her hands against her sides beneath her breasts and count the spaces between her ribs.

It is not as bad as it was. She has gained some of her weight back, but recovering from Coldharbour, and the coma that followed, and then a second after that - she would need more than just a few measly weeks. She would need time.

Time she no longer has.

Time she’s never really had, maybe. Maybe her fate had been predetermined from the start. Maybe she had been meant for this. Born for this.

Maybe she had been born for struggle, for strife, to be a seed of order flung into a world of chaos and demanded of. Maybe she had been born to know love, but only for a moment. Only for a blink, a blink of time in an eternity she will not see.

_It is better to have loved and lost, than to have not loved at all._

Would Serana feel that way, when she is gone? Would Serana have chosen to love her, if she’d known that she would never have her for long?

 _“I_ _’ll love you as long as I can, then.”_

Serana must have thought it would be a longer time than this.

Once upon a time, Eres had thought so, too. She had hoped for it, dreamed for it, yearned for it for so long that she can almost not remember a time when every second thought had not been of Serana and what future they might have together. But now…

Now, Eres is weak. She is not quite at her weakest, but she is close enough, and she does not have time to make herself stronger. Alduin will not wait for her to be ready. She must simply _do_ , and hope that she lives long enough to deal the final blow.

Surviving? That is beyond her hopes and dreams. She cannot expect something she sees as impossible. She will bring Alduin down, if it kills her to do it, and she expects it to. How could it not, in the state she is in now?

At least, if nothing else, Serana will not have to watch her die. 

Perhaps there’s a way. There’s always at least one. Eres is not so pessimistic as to believe that there is not a single possibility for her to survive it - she knows that there must be. Serana certainly thinks there is one, and so would the others, Eres knows.

But knowing that it is not entirely impossible, even by just the slimmest chance, does not mean she has not accepted the odds against her. She has to. She cannot count on her return.

She can’t count on much of anything, really. She knows that her chances are slim. Slimmer even than she had thought they would be at the beginning of this, on that lake back in the Forgotten Vale where it had all began.

Eres will likely die. As soon as tomorrow, possibly. This could be her last night alive.

Her last night. Ever. Her last night here, on this world, in this time. Her last night with Serana, when she had once believed she would have centuries.

They have to talk about it. Eres knows that Serana wants to. But there is a part of her that does not want to waste time talking of things they cannot change. A part of her that would much rather spend her last night in a very different manner.

It seems like she should. If she might die, then she should make the most of what little life she has remaining, should she not? It would be almost logical, in that way. If not now, then when? If not here, then where? She may never get the opportunity again.

But Eres will break, if Serana touches her. She will shatter for her touch, and her resolve will waver, and she will not be able to face the destiny she was crafted for. Not if she knows what she is giving up. Not if she has a taste of heaven and must turn away from it to do so.

It would feel like a goodbye.

In a way, it would be—a last hurrah for the dawning of her execution day. A farewell, spoken not in words but action, in touches, in feeling and heartbeats and connection.

It _would_ be a goodbye. And Eres cannot say goodbye to her. If her leaving hinges on whether or not she is able to say farewell to Serana forever then… She would never be able to leave at all.

Eres feels the cinch around her throat, the shudder of a collapsing breath in her lungs. She calls magic to her fingertips, pulling the sound from the room and drawing it inward, keeping it here, with her—and not out there, where Serana might hear her come apart at the seams.

The air turns hollow. In that space, there is a feeling of a detachment from the world around her. From Serana, just outside that door. Heavy in the silence that it brings.

A silence that will not judge for her tears.

She is too young for this. She had never asked for this. She’d never wanted it.Why, of all people, did it have to be her? Why had the gods chosen _her_? Why couldn’t they have just left her alone?

All she’d ever wanted was to be free.

* * *

Serana is nothing if not observant. She didn’t get to where she is now without paying attention.

Much of her life has been spent on the outside looking in. An unwilling witness to her mother and father’s numerous rows, schemes, and eventual falling out. Against her father, one would likely say Serana had as much part in that as Eres had - but that was then. Her father’s prophecy had had as much to do with her as it had with Eres.

This, however - Eres’ calling as Dragonborn, the prophecy of Alduin’s return and, they hoped, eventual defeat - in that, Serana is again an outsider. She is _there_ , certainly, in such that she has done and will do her very damnedest to ensure that Eres not only succeeds but lives through it.

But just as she had not truly been able to help Eres in Coldharbour outside of sending Isran and Inigo after her, with Alduin too, what help Serana can offer is limited. She isn’t the Dragonborn, Eres is. That destiny remains Eres’ alone.

Though she may not be able to take that burden from her, Serana has made it a point to be a pillar of support for her throughout it all. If that meant fighting dragons and tracking down age-old prophecies (again), then Serana will do it - as she has been, these past few months. Even if it is not _her_ destiny outlined in that prophecy, it may as well be. Eres’ destiny is inextricably tied with her own.

What Eres does, she will do. What Eres says, she will follow - within reason, of course, unless Eres is being particularly stubborn, which is not altogether unusual.

Serana is a shadow to her light, an entity that exists somewhere outside of her but still so firmly attached that they cannot be separated. If it is an anchor Eres needs, she will be that for her. If it is instead a crutch, Serana will be that, too. Serana will be no end of things for Eres, if it was asked of her - but a gravedigger is not one of them.

Eres may have accepted the possibility that she will die against Alduin. Serana has not.

There is a distance in that disagreement. Something that pries itself between them and pushes them to two opposing ends. Eres, in all her ever-growing certainty and resignation - and Serana, in her stubborn rejection of its inevitability.

She sees it more in Eres as the days wear on since the summit at High Hrothgar. At first, it is little more than a tickle in the back of her mind, so occupied with thoughts of having Eres to herself for once, just for a time, once they reach Whiterun.

On the second day, thoughts of that are flung far from her mind. She can think for nothing when it feels as though Eres is pulling away from her, when Eres’ eyes grow distant and forlorn, when there is an underlying melancholy to every word she speaks.

It takes her several hours, on that day, for her to realize what it is that seems so _wrong_ about it. It is not just that Eres is distracted, or that she is particularly sad - Serana has certainly seen her upset before, and to be frank, Eres hides it now better than she has previously.

It is not that which brings Serana pause, which makes her hesitate when she thinks of voicing her concern. There is something else beneath the surface, something that feels _incorrect_. Like it is Eres, and yet decidedly not.

When it finally occurs to her just what it is, she can scarcely believe she hadn’t seen it before.

 _Defeat_ is not something Serana can recall having ever seen on Eres. She has never seen the girl simply… give up. Resign herself to her fate. She has never known Eres to go down without a fight.

Eres had been sent to Coldharbour, and she had still fought to escape it when all signs had pointed to it being impossible. She had fought Molag Bal and not only survived it, but somehow managed to be such a monumental nuisance that he had not bothered either of them since.

That is what it is that seems wrong about this picture, Serana realizes. Eres has never been the type to just accept that she could not effect change upon something she did not like. She would do it, or she would die trying.

That, in fact, was one of the few things about Eres that truly irked her at times - she could be astoundingly foolhardy to the point of idiocy. In some things, Eres could be so mulishly stubborn that trying to convince her of anything else was about as likely as persuading a brick wall to move.

Eres, somehow, has always been both an unstoppable force _and_ an immovable object, all at the same time.

The Eres she has seen since the summit has been anything but. On the contrary, she seems more quietly despondent by the day.

That, in and of itself, is just as telling. Eres does not _tell_ her how she feels. She does not even show it, and in fact goes to lengths to pretend that she is not.

She talks normally, she jokes, she even laughs and smiles just as she might any other day - but when the moment passes, there is a shift in her, and though some may not have seen such subtleties in her behavior, Serana is, after all, nothing if not observant.

Just as she can tell when Eres is feeling down, she can also tell when that aimless despair has been focused into a razor-sharp edge of determination. She can see it, when Odahviing comes.

Serana knows, just from looking at her, that she will not convince Eres that there could be any other way.

And when Serana thinks about it - when she removes herself from the equation, when she removes her feelings for Eres from it - she must admit, it does seem that way. The more time they waste looking for alternative solutions, the more time Alduin has to gather his power. The longer they wait, the more unlikely it will be that Eres will be able to defeat him at all.

Serana knows that. She can certainly see it. She’s not _stupid._ She just really, really doesn’t like it.

When they reach their room, Serana opens her mouth to speak, but Eres beats her to it.

“I’m going to bathe.” Eres says quickly. She looks at Serana as she says it. There is a too-easy expression on her face. Were Serana anyone else in the world, she might have thought Eres isn’t concerned about Alduin at all.

“Eres.” Serana starts. “I don’t—”

“We’ll talk after.” Eres offers. She lifts herself on her toes to place a quick, chaste kiss upon her lips. “I’m not going to bed dirty.” Eres spins on her heel, opens the door for the washroom, and is out of sight before Serana can protest it.

 _Fine_ , Serana thinks. She can wait. She’s very, very good at waiting. If Eres thinks she’s stupid enough to believe that Eres _isn_ _’t_ bothered by the idea of facing Alduin alone, she’s got another thing coming.

So Serana waits.

When Eres finally does emerge from the washroom, looking somehow everything _but_ refreshed for how long she’d spent in it. For a moment, Serana considers ambushing her then and there. Breaking from routine, however, would just be a greater indicator that Serana means to interrogate her, which would put Eres on her guard.

Instead, Serana does take her bath, as she would any other night. Only, rather than daydreaming, she spends her time deciding on her approach. Eres is likely to lean towards defensive if Serana jumps into the conversation with an accusatory tone. That would just throw the walls in place, and Serana wouldn’t be likely to get much of anywhere if that were to happen. But, if she can lead her more gently to it, she may just have a chance at getting her to open up. And getting her to understand.

Serana emerges to find Eres leaning against the wall beside the window, with such a distant, far-away look in her eyes that she seems miles away from the present. It takes several seconds for her to notice that Serana has emerged at all.

And there, when Eres turns to her, when she blinks and her eyes clear, when she smiles a smile that does not quite reach her eyes - Serana sees it.

This, Serana must admit, is not an Eres she is used to seeing. Eres may not have always been especially forthright about her feelings all the time, but it had never been that Eres would feign cheer where it did not belong. More often, Eres leaned towards effecting a mask of neutrality or impassivity, keen on keeping any emotion from her face that she was not prepared to speak of.

 _This_ Eres, the one who smiles for her so falsely, is not one that Serana has seen directed at herself. More often, such a countenance would be shown toward those Eres did not trust with her deepest worries - Yosef, or Johanna, or those she felt she needed to put on a particular face for. If nothing else, Eres had never bothered to do such a thing for Serana.

And now she is, and Serana is almost certain that she knows why.

“Not long now,” Eres comments, her tone deceptively mild. Her eyes turn again to the world outside the window, to the darkened streets and red-orange glow of the braziers lighting the winding paths of the city below. “Soon, this will all be over.”

Serana contemplates the gentleness. She considers being gentle about it, she does. She’d meant to be. But the words escape her before she can stop them. “ _Alduin_ will be over soon,” she hears herself say, almost involuntarily. “Not you. Not your life.”

Eres turns to look at her again, and her expression is not at all like that of the near-pity she’d seen in her just days before. Rather, she seems… oddly serene, about it all. Like she hasn’t a care in the world.

“We’ll see,” is all Eres says to that. She turns back to the window. “Not long at all, now…”

“We’ll figure something out.”

It feels like she’s been saying that a lot lately. She never seems to have an answer when she needs one. It’s always - we’ll figure something out. Soon. Eventually. Somehow. She never has the right words to say.

“I’m sure that wizard has a way to contact the College.” Assuming he hasn’t managed to provoke Odahviing into frying him, that is. “We can get in touch with Mirabelle and see if she has some idea of what else we might be able to do here.”

Eres hums, low in her throat. Her eyes trace the path of the bouncing flame of a torch, carried by a patrolling guard on the paths below. “You know we don’t have time for that.”

Serana doesn’t even know what’s worse about it. The fact that Eres thinks they have no other option, or that she’s acting so bloody nonchalant about it. Eres’ mind is made up now. Perhaps it had been for some time.

“A day, Eres.” Serana offers, for she may not be able to make Eres agree to waiting until they find something else - but perhaps she can convince her to compromise. And maybe, with enough luck, tomorrow will bring some form of promise that there may be another way. Some way that she might be able to sway her into waiting a bit longer. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Eres hums again, then. She does not respond.

“One more day to see if we can figure out an alternative.” Serana says. She crosses the distance between them, and cannot help the instinct to step behind her, wrap her arms around her middle. Perhaps, if she could be an anchor… “I don’t like the idea of you going into Sovngarde without me. For any reason. Certainly not to fight Alduin himself. You followed me into the Soul Cairn. I owe you this much.”

“You don’t owe me anything.” Somehow, Eres sounds vaguely amused. Her reflection in the window is smiling, just a little. It almost seems real. “I did it because I wanted to.”

“And I’m doing this because I want to,” Serana replies. “We’re supposed to do this together.”

“Arngeir never mentioned a vampire in the prophecy,” Eres muses aloud.

Her amusement irks her. “This isn’t a joke, Eres. This is your life we’re talking about.”

There, in her reflection, Serana sees the briefest flash of something that looks almost like pain. It is gone and buried almost before she recognizes it for what it is. Eres’ hands fold over her own, warm and—and trembling, just a little. Eres pulls them away just as quickly, seeming to have noticed that _she_ would notice it.

“It’s late,” Eres says. She spins in Serana’s arms to face her, lifting herself up to plant another quick kiss against her lips. “We should get some sleep. We’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

“Eres,” Serana says warningly. She knows when she’s being lied to. She knows even more when Eres is hiding something. “Tomorrow,” she says slowly, holding her gaze, “we find another way. One day.”

“Alright,” Eres agrees. Too easily. Something about it feels wrong.

“Promise me.” It’s not quite fair, maybe, knowing what promises mean to Eres. But if that is what she must do to ensure that Eres doesn’t do something reckless, then she will do it.

“One day,” Eres replies, and there is something wistful about her tone. Like perhaps she thinks of it as one last day together, rather than one more day to figure something out. Serana will take what she can get.

She even hears it, in her mind. The many times Eres has expressed her dedication to promises. Hearing the very same thing from Claude, even, who had likely been the person to first impress that mentality upon Eres herself.

_“I never break a promise.”_

_“You know I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”_

If there is anything that Eres honors in this world, it is trust, and loyalty. She has never broken a promise so long as Serana has known her, and Serana would imagine she never will.

The anxious tightness in Serana’s chest settles, just a little. Eres would not break a promise to her, no matter how stubborn she might be about everything else. She would give Serana one day. Serana could trust in that much, if nothing else. She would just have to make the most of it tomorrow.

Serana allows herself to sigh, dropping her head until the warmth of Eres’ forehead presses against her own. One day. She has one day to convince her, and still, it feels as though Eres is slipping right through her fingers.

“I love you, Eres.” The words feel heavy in her throat, heavier still in her chest. It feels like both the first time and the last. “I can’t imagine my life without you.”

There is a moment, when Eres’ arms lift to wrap around her shoulders. There is a moment, when Eres sinks into her embrace, where, just for an instant, just for the briefest flash of time—Serana has the strangest feeling of a profound grief that is not her own.

The strength of it steals her breath away. The weight of it paralyzes her, freezes her in place, and for a moment, for a blink – it feels like she cannot breathe for the agony of it.

Then Eres’ head shifts to lay against her shoulder, and it is gone. It comes and goes so quickly that Serana wonders if she had imagined it.

“And I love you, _vhenan_ ,” Eres murmurs to her, voice thick with emotion. It is the most genuine she has sounded since High Hrothgar.

It is some time before Eres releases her. When she does at last, pulling back to look up at her, it is the most she has looked like herself in some time.

“I’m tired,” Eres says to her, brushing a hand against her cheek. “Can we speak of this later?”

Serana considers it. The brush of Eres’ thumb against her cheek sways her more than she might like to admit.

“Alright,” she agrees, but not without some measure of reluctance. She probably shouldn’t let Eres avoid the subject like this. They still have things they need to talk about – like Eres’ certainty of her mortality, for one. But Eres does look exhausted, and she does need sleep, and, if Serana is honest – she wants more to hold her than to talk.

“Tomorrow, then.” Serana says to her. She leads Eres to the bed, climbs into it beside her. Eres turns into her arms automatically, settling against her. “We’ll talk about it then.”

Eres hums her agreement. Her eyes have already closed. Soon, she will drift off entirely.

Serana watches her, as she does many nights. She has always found it fascinating, somehow, the transition from awake to asleep. There is something in the way that Eres’ breathing settles, in the way her heart slows, in the way her body sinks into it, in the way that Serana can track it as the tension in her relaxes, as her expression softens.

It is a painful irony that Eres has always looked most at peace when she is sleeping, when her ‘illness’ has made that very sleep such a risky affair.

Serana will watch over her this night, as she has any other. And in the morning, they will go to that fidgety little mage man who serves the Jarl and find a way to contact the others. They _will_ find another way around this. Serana will make sure of it.

Eres will not be fighting Alduin alone, if she has anything to say about it.

* * *

The night has not yet passed. Dawn is yet several hours away, and yet Eres wakes.

She does not wake in the manner that one wakes when they have slept a full night, in the slow, gradual manner where one comes slowly to awareness. She does not wake even in the manner that one does when they have nightmares, startled into wakefulness by horrors that haunt the dreamworld.

Eres wakes in the way that she is meant to be awake, and so she is.

There is a calling in her veins. A thrumming beneath her skin. A pulling, a tugging, coaxing her to wake. To move. To do what she must do. To do what only she can do.

Eres ignores it, for a time. Not because she does not want to listen, but rather because she will. She ignores it solely because she will answer that call, and she needs only a moment before she does.

She spends that moment in the deep silence of a dark room, tucked beneath the duvet, wrapped in the arms of a lover she had not the chance to truly love as she had wished.

There is only the pale glow of moonlight, filtering through the drapes. Casting long shadows against the walls. Illuminating the pale skin of a woman Eres could not have loved more if she’d tried.

Serana’s eyes are closed. She dozes in the manner that she often does when Eres is sleeping, somewhere half between awake and asleep, alert and yet relaxed. If Eres stares long enough, she will wake, and then where would she be?

Eres watches herself lift a hand from what seems like a great distance. She knows what she is doing, and yet, does not know how she knows it. She simply does.

Her fingertips brush against smooth, soft skin. There is the softness of her cheeks, and higher – there is the give of a temple beneath her fingers. Something like a strangely liquid heat sprouts from the contact, unfiltered magic spilling from her fingers as threads of herself, weaving into a mind that is not her own.

 _“Sleep.”_ Eres murmurs, a command rather than a request.

Serana sighs. She sinks further into the mattress. Her expression slackens, ever so slightly, turning the very picture of serene.

Eres pulls her hand away. The warmth of the unfamiliar magic is still there, pooling in the pads of her fingers, tingling as it travels back up her hands into the rest of her. It feels strange and foreign, and yet somehow, it is the most natural her magic has ever felt to her.

There is the pulling again. The churning somewhere beneath her skin, the anxious crawl of a calling she has delayed for too long.

Eres lies there a moment longer. She traces the contours of Serana’s face with her eyes, trying to commit all of it to a memory she will never lose. It is only when the urging becomes too strong that she finally pulls away, pressing a kiss to the very temple she had reached into.

Serana had wondered what sleeping felt like. It had been so long since she'd been human that she'd forgotten it long ago. This probably wasn’t the way she had imagined she would find out.

Eres climbs out of bed. She dresses almost mechanically, her mind thousands of miles away already. She pulls on her armor. Slings her bow over one shoulder, attaches her quiver to her hip. She buckles Dawnbreaker and its sheath at her back. It does not hum, and yet she can feel some sensation from it that she cannot give name to. Something like anticipation. Like knowing.

It takes little effort to reach him. Dragonsreach’s security in the guest halls were not as stringent as elsewhere, it seemed, and who else might be sneaking to see him in the middle of the night?

Eres slides through the smallest of cracks in the doors. She hears the shift of heavy, wrought-iron chains before she sees the hulking shadow of his head lift at her entry. Two golden eyes fix upon her, and narrow.

 _“Dovahkin.”_ Odahviing greets. He does not sound surprised to see her.

Eres says nothing to him. She moves to the left of him, throws the lever that will release him. She crosses the room to do the same on the right. When she turns to find him shaking the stiffness from his muscles, turning to face her, she does not fear him.

 _“I wondered,”_ he says to her, before she can say anything at all. _“When you would come.”_

“I’m here now.” Eres says. She steps closer to him. “Take me to Skuldafn.”

* * *

Serana has some experience with waking from a doze. She even has some experience with waking from stasis, all that time ago when Eres had released her from the tomb she had been sealed in for so long.

Neither of those experiences prepare her for waking to the sun in her eyes, an empty bed, and no memory of the hours in between.

She remembers Eres, and the talk, and going to sleep with her as she would any other night. She remembers drifting off into a daydream, a wondering of what Valenwood might be like, of what their lives might be like, when all of this was over at last.

And then, nothing.

Nothing at all until she’d felt the uncomfortable tingling sensation of sunlight on her skin, and the brightness of it through closed eyelids.

When she wakes, squinting and groggy and quite unsettled by the amount of time she had simply _lost_ , there is a moment where she realizes, quite suddenly, how much more terrible it must have been for Eres.

And then she realizes that Eres is not in the bed with her.

Going by the sun and the brightness of its light, it is well past dawn. It is at least mid-morning, and Eres never sleeps so late. Serana herself usually is alert before Eres is, and even Eres wakes unreasonably early for someone who so often gets so little sleep at all.

Serana presses a hand against the spot where Eres should have been. Only the warmth of the sun’s light meets her hand. Not the warmth of a body recently vacated.

Serana sits up. Listens. She does not hear a heartbeat. Nothing but the distant, muffled voices of the Jarl and his attendants in the main hall, and the soft footfalls of guards pacing the halls nearby.

There is an emptiness in this room, now, and a heaviness in the very air that Serana cannot quite explain. It feels as though the air itself mourns the loss of what was meant to be there, like it senses that there is something missing.

Eres is not in the bed. She is not in the room, or the washroom, or the halls, or even on the balcony that had once housed the dragon they had trapped just yesterday – a dragon that is as conspicuously absent as Eres.

Even the market below seems still and muted. The sky above is drab and gray, clouds darkening with the promise of a coming summer rain. It drapes the world in muted color, in washed out tones that seem to echo a building despair sinking deep into her chest.

There is the distant murmurings of the citizens at market, the far-away rumble of a roll of foreboding thunder. There is the damp heaviness in the air and the scent warning of a storm on the horizon.

She feels it again, then, standing at the edge of Dragonsreach’s balcony, knowing that she will not find Eres anywhere that she might reach on her own. That same, soul-rending grief that she had felt the very ghost of just the night before, the same that had not felt like her own, that had felt as though someone had reached into her and allowed her the barest glimpse of a future she had not yet known.

She knows it, then.

She should have known it before. Perhaps she had, in her own way. Perhaps she’d merely been fooling herself to believe she had managed to convince her. That she had managed to get Eres, of all people, to compromise on _duty_ —the one thing Eres has never shied away from as long as Serana has known her.

Eres had already made her decision, then. The pain she had felt then – could she even say it was a mere premonition of her own? Perhaps instead it had been Eres’. Perhaps instead Eres had shown her, even for a moment, even for an instant that she would not understand until now, what pain her decision had brought her. Perhaps Eres had meant to help her understand that it was not one she had made lightly.

Serana remembers Eres in the days leading up to now. The self-imposed distance, coupled with the assurance of a mask that aimed to set her at ease. _Her_ , of all people, who would not have judged her. And Eres had done it all the same, playing along with her musings of the future, pretending that the weight upon her shoulders was not as heavy as it was.

How long ago had Eres chosen this? Was it as far back as their first conversation about Valenwood, when Eres had seemed so wistful? Was it further still? Had Eres known shortly after she had awakened, instead, when Serana had told her of things she could not know for the sake of her life? When Eres had thought her illness would kill her anyway?

How long had Eres been hosting that grief for her own life, for an impossible decision, and Serana had only sensed it at the times that she was particularly weak? How was it that the alarm bells had only truly rung within the past few days, and not in the weeks leading up to it? When had Eres decided to throw her life away?

When had Eres decided to leave her?

“Serana.” The Jarl’s voice sounds, just behind her. She had not heard him approach.

Serana braces her hands on her hips. She takes a breath. She cannot cry, truly, not in the way that mortals do – but she does not want him to hear it in her voice, all the same. She clears her throat before she turns to him, and still her voice comes out more thickly than she had meant it to.

“Yes?”

The Jarl looks at her with an unexpectedly apologetic expression. There is a deep sympathy in his eyes, one that she does not want to see just now. He extends a hand, a hand which holds a few folded pieces of parchment, and a very familiar dagger.

“We found these.” The Jarl says, voice quiet. He places them gently into her waiting hands. “Attached to the door this morning.”

The writing on the parchment is Eres’, that Serana knows. She cannot bring herself to read it just yet. Not in front of him.

“For what it is worth,” Balgruuf says, and he very awkwardly reaches to pat her shoulder, “I think she meant not to worry you. Hounds sometimes wander off on their own when they know it is their time. Perhaps she felt the same.”

“She’s not a hound.” Serana glares at him. “And she’s not dead.”

“So we all hope,” Balgruuf replies grimly. “But alive or dead, she is in Sovngarde. It may be that she may not return. No one has ever seen Sovngarde and returned from it.”

No one’s ever walked into Coldharbour and returned from it either. If there is anyone who will manage it, it would be Eres.

“She’ll come back.” She sounds far more confident about that than she feels, just now.

The Jarl looks at her, pity written across his face. She’s almost tempted to slap him, just so she doesn’t have to see it.

“We shall see,” is all he says to that. “You may remain in the guest room as long as you like. Dragonsreach will always be open to you and yours,” he promises. “Keep hold of that faith. Perhaps, with enough of it…”

“I don’t need faith.” Faith is for fools. Faith is for people who believe in things without proof that they exist. Faith is unfounded. What Serana has is _knowledge_. She _knows_ that Eres will live, and that she will return. She has to believe in that.

Serana will remain here until she returns. That is all there is to it.

She very carefully does not read the letter addressed to her. She shoves the will deep into one of the bags Eres had left behind when she returns to the guest room. It will not be needed.

The air in the room still feels as still and empty as it had before. There is something wrong about the imagery of staying in a room without Eres in it. Of living in a world without Eres in it. Somehow, it feels like the very world itself has shifted for her absence.

Serana has known it for well over a year now. The emptiness, the _wrongness_ of it all only serves to confirm it.

The world had simply not been meant to exist without her in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seriously though don't kill me


	25. Absolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ummmm. so this was an incredibly difficult chapter to write. sorry for the delay.
> 
> edit: forgot to add:  
> TW: mentions/depictions of child abuse are in this chapter, most notably within the in-narrative flashbacks, marked by italics. please skip the italicized sections if this would be triggering for you.

_“This is as far as I can take you.”_

Carefully, Eres slides down the wing he has pressed to the ground. Her knees buckle when she tries to stand, turned weak with fear from the long flight far too high above the ground. She manages to stand with embarrassing difficulty.

Odahviing’s head swings towards her. _“Krif voth ahkrin. I will look for your return. Or Alduin’s.”_

Eres looks past him, towards the stone ruins rising into the sky ahead of her. If she had to wager a guess, she would imagine the portal to Sovngarde would be near the very top of these ruins. The things she needs to find always seem to be. She can hear the skittering of bones in the distance, carried by wind that blows unexpectedly cool this high up.

Odahviing shifts beside her, but does not yet leave. When she looks at him, he is gazing thoughtfully back at her.

_“Is there anything you might wish to take back to your - Kiim? Partner?”_

At any other time, Eres might have flushed at the dragon referring to Serana as her wife, of all things. She doesn’t believe there is another word for a lover or partner in the Dragon language, but all the same - ‘wife’ was the closest meaning to _Kiim_. All the reference brings her now, however, is pain, and not a small amount of guilt.

If she does manage to survive this, Serana will be furious with her. But if she doesn’t, then… Eres hopes she has spared her the pain of saying goodbye, at least. And she has spared the world for being destroyed if Eres had not been able to walk away from her at all. Eres hopes, if she does miraculously survive, that Serana will be able to forgive her for it.

“No,” she says to Odahviing. She pushes down the guilt and the ache inside her. She has to focus on the present. On making it to Sovngarde. On making it to _him_. “I…”

She remembers the letter she had written, hastily in the corridors before approaching Odahviing in the trap room. The Will… She had drawn that up days ago, in the few moments she had where Serana had not been present. She had always at least planned to leave that behind, if nothing else. The letter had been—that had not been planned. But she had not planned to leave as she had, either. She had just known that she had to.

“I left her a letter.” Eres says. It sounds stupid even to her. A letter. Like that could even come close to being enough of an explanation.

Beside her, Odahviing rumbles deep in his chest. He sends her a look that makes her feel small.

 _“Mercy without purpose,”_ he says grimly, _“is not a mercy at all.”_

 _Mercy_ hadn’t been quite what she was aiming for. But perhaps that is what it had seemed to be, from the outside looking in. Perhaps in a way, she had meant her departure to be merciful. She could not say that it was.

_“She will not thank you for it.”_

Eres scowls, drawing her bow from her shoulder. “What do you know,” she mutters, more to herself than him.

Odahviing barely knows either of them. He’d been Alduin’s lackey not too long ago. Even now, it’s plain to her that he would return to Alduin’s side, if she is not successful. He has no right to judge her. He certainly doesn’t know what it’s like to be in her shoes.

 _“Of the plights of man? Very little. I care not for the dramatics of mortals.”_ Odahviing chuckles to himself. _“But you are not mortal,”_ he says plainly. _“And neither is she. Should you be the one to return - your decision is one you both must live with.”_

Eres hardly needs him to tell her that. “I know.”

_“Farewell, Dovahkin.”_

Wind buffets at her back as he takes to the skies, beating his wings upon the air with such force that she is nearly blown clear off her feet. In short order, the red brilliance of his scaled hide is no more than a speck in the distance, and she is alone.

Alone, well and truly. She cannot even remember the last time she had adventured alone. Before Serana? Before Altano, even? How long has it been since she has had no one but herself to depend on?

Eres shakes the thoughts from her mind. She can still hear that telltale rattling in the distance - undead skeletons, somewhere within the ruins, having sensed her arrival. They would spot her before long. How useless could she be, if she could not even make it to Sovngarde to begin with?

She makes it half to the peak - or what she believes may be it - before she grows quickly weary of Skuldafn’s innumerable guardian undead. If Serana were here, it would be a walk in the park - every skeleton they downed could just be raised to fight alongside them, until Serana had raised so many that she and Eres could watch the lot of them rush off ahead to fight their former brethren.

Eres would be lying if she were to say they’d never entertained themselves in that way before, on a particularly dreadful night. Hell, even with Inigo, he would make a game of it, as bright and chipper as he could ever be, shouting off how many he had killed until Eres joins his game by default, and they would be through them all before she realized it.

But Serana is not here. Neither is Inigo. Neither is anyone, and there are too many to fight alone.

Eres pauses at the next landing, ducking behind a half-collapsed stone wall. There is just enough space here for a dragon to land, and that is all she needs. Perhaps Odahviing could not help her, but Durnehviir—

She shouts his name into the wind, gratified when she feels his presence tugging at her senses. She hears his roar before she sees him, feels the ground quake as his necromantic magic spreads across it. Several scattered bones on the stairs below rattle, shake, and finally snap together as if drawn by magnets as the bones align into a leg, and an arm, and ribs, and finally rise from the ground, bows and swords held aloft in skeletal hands, eyes glowing the bright, purplish-white of Durnehviir’s power.

She feels the quake of him landing on a tall spire not a moment later, far above her head.

Durnehviir is as connected to her as any dragon could be. He knows what she needs of him without her saying it aloud, and soon his small battalion of skeletal minions are bounding their way up the stairs, beating back the forces of Skuldafn’s last guardians.

Eres tilts her head back to peer up at him - he looks even healthier than when she had seen him last. He looks down at her almost casually in return.

“Thank you, Durnehviir.”

 _“Thank_ ** _you_** _,_ _”_ he replies, chuckling. His humor fades in short order as he lifts his head to look further toward the peak she must reach. _“Allow me to bring you to the portal, Dovahkiin. I sense that Alduin has left you a surprise.”_

She frowns up at him, even as he lifts himself from the spire to position himself to land within the small clearing below.

“What kind of ‘surprise’?” Eres bends her knees to absorb the impact of Durnehviir’s landing, and still, she nearly stumbles into the wall behind her.

 _“A Priest,”_ says Durnehviir, shaking his over-large head.

Now that he is closer to her, she swear that she cannot see even a single scale sloughing off him. His hide may never be as brilliant as Odahviing’s, but he certainly looks leagues better than he ever had in the Soul Cairn. Perhaps, she thinks, one day he might be strong enough to break free of it completely.

_“Powerful Lich, once leaders of the Dragon Cult. I am surprised you have not had an encounter with one before.”_

“I suppose I should count myself lucky.”

Eres doesn’t like the sound of this priest. She can’t afford to injure herself before even reaching Alduin.

 _“Worry not,”_ Durnehviir says, as if sensing her thoughts. _“I will take care of him. Consider it my last favor to you, as you are now.”_

Eres pauses, half to climbing up his wing to mount his back. “What does that mean?”

 _“Only time will tell.”_ Durnehviir replies, and he says nothing more of it. _“Come, and I will bring you to the portal. Sovngarde awaits.”_

As soon as she is astride him, legs and arms wrapped precariously around his wide neck, he lifts himself from the ground and high into the air, so high that even those skeletons his necromantic summons had not distracted could not have reached them with their arrows. In the distance, at the crest of the great ruin that was Skuldafn, Eres can see it—the font of bright magical light.

It thrums in her veins as they close in, something like anticipation mixed with dread. When she crosses this threshold—that is it. She will be in Sovngarde. She will face Alduin. Stepping into that portal may be the last steps she ever takes.

 _“There,”_ Durnehviir calls to her above the wind, his gaze directed downward. _“He who guards the entrance. A Dragon Priest. This one,”_ he says to her, _“I will kill for you. Be wary if you stumble across any other. They were granted extraordinary power in exchange for their unending service. If there is any being on this world who may yet prove a match to even you,”_ he says, _“a Priest would.”_

Then, he is diving, and Eres must bow her head close to the scales of his neck to keep from being flung right off his back. For a moment, there is a confusing swirl of magicka pulling at her—that which feels almost familiar, almost inviting, too much like that which she had felt at the portal to Aetherius in Coldharbour. Mixed alongside it is something darker, something foul and vile that claws at her, that yearns to take her for its own—

Durnehviir slams into the ground with so much force that she is nearly flung from him all the same, but the sense of malicious magic reaching for her is snuffed almost immediately upon his landing. There is just the barest hint of it when the dust settles around them, when it feels like Eres’ brain stops rattling about in her skull. Then, it too sputters out and dies, and there is only the enticing pull of Aetherius upon her. Waiting for her.

Eres climbs carefully down from him. The sickening crunch of bone meets her ears, a moment before Durnehviir’s own dry chuckle. She turns, watching as Durnehviir shifts, lifting his right leg clear of the robed being he had crushed underfoot. A painted, intricate mask topples from its face and rolls to a stop mere feet from her.

There is a sense of power, in that mask. She can almost sense the way it bleeds off it, the radiating aura of the magicka infused within it. Her skin crawls at the feel of it at the edges of her perception.

A magical artifact used by a priest in service of Alduin—she could not imagine any good would come of taking it with her. But she also knows how dangerous such an artifact could be in the wrong person’s hands.

Carefully, she lifts it from the ground, and dumps it unceremoniously into her pack. If she does make it back from Sovngarde, she will be sure to bring it to the College for safekeeping. They would know more than any how to house a dangerous artifact safely away from any who might misuse it. If she does not, then—she won’t have to worry that someone else might come across it, and use whatever power is held within it for their own purposes.

Perhaps too, she can admit to herself, she had been stalling. Just a little.

 _“Alduin awaits.”_ Durnehviir reminds her, unnecessarily. _“The time has come to meet your fate.”_

 _Death?_ She thinks darkly, frowning. The portal to Sovngarde here feels no different than that of Aetherius had in Coldharbour. It feels like home, waiting for her on the other side. Looking at it and feeling trepidation instead of happiness feels somehow _wrong_. Like she’s not allowed to enter such a place with anything but positive feelings.

“Have you ever been to Sovngarde, Durnehviir?”

Durnehviir barks out a loud laugh. _“Ha! Me? Allowed in Sovngarde? Perhaps the landing rattled you more than I expected. Krosis, Dovahkiin. Next time I will be gentler.”_

Alright. Durnehviir _is_ a necromantic dragon. Indebted to the Ideal Masters in the Soul Cairn. She supposes that was a stupid question.

“Do you know anything about it?”

 _“No more than you do, I imagine,”_ Durnehviir replies. She feels his gaze upon her, and when she turns to look at him, he is watching her knowingly. _“Do not let your fear control you.”_

“Easy for you to say.” Eres mutters, wringing hands that tremble. Her legs feel weak.

Was _this_ what it meant to be Dragonborn? To always feel so woefully unprepared? Why, of all the people the gods could have chosen, had they chosen her? Didn’t they know she wasn’t half as strong as they think she is? Wouldn’t they have known that she would not be capable of this? Or had they never meant for her to succeed at all?

If the Gods had instead chosen a man like Ulfric, Eres bets that _he_ would not be shaking in his boots at the thought of facing Alduin. He would not cower at the thought of dying for a noble cause, no matter how much suffering his rebellion had brought to Skyrim.

Or, hell—even the Companions. One of them could have been Dragonborn, could they not? The Companions saw an impossible fight as a thrilling challenge, if the stories were to be believed.

And yet here Eres is, and she feels the beginnings of panic beneath her skin.

Eres would be lying if she were to say she does not feel a bit like running away. If she were to say that perhaps she could forget all of this, and run back to Serana, and enjoy what time they might have remaining before Alduin destroys them all. At least then, she might be able to enjoy her final moments. At least then, she would not fear for dying alone, for leaving Serana alone, for—for all of the things she had wanted to do, and had never done.

_“Eres.”_

Eres flinches, jumping at the sound of her name in Durnehviir’s voice. She doesn’t think he’s ever actually called her by her name before. None of the dragons have. Not even Paarthurnax.

 _“There are those of us who are bound by fate.”_ Durnehviir rumbles, holding her gaze steadily. _“Fate can be a cruel mistress even at the best of times. But… There are those of us who are bound by fate,”_ he says pointedly, _“and those of us who can break free of it. Are you a caged bird, to sing only on command? Or will you break free of the chains that bind you, and decide your own fate?”_

“I can’t,” Eres tells him. “If it were up to me…” If it were up to her, she’d spend the last of her days with Serana. If it were up to her, she wouldn’t be here at all. “I don’t have a choice.”

 _“There is always a choice.”_ Durnehviir says. _“Not now, perhaps. Not in this, here.”_ He swings his head towards the portal. _“But there is always a choice. There is always a path. It may be one that cannot be easily seen. It may be one that will not appear until the right time. You will know it when it comes.”_

Eres is reminded, suddenly, of Esbern’s words in Skyhaven.

_“You will know. When the time comes.”_

_“This is a decision only you can make, and it does not come without its consequences. You will understand, when the time is right.”_

There is the pulling at the edges of her senses again. Aetherius, reaching for her, beckoning her inside. But she can’t leave just yet. Not when she’s certain that Durnehviir knows more than he has told her.

“What do you mean by that?” She asks him. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard someone say that to me. Those exact words.”

 _“Which?”_ He asks her mildly, as if they are discussing nothing more important than the weather.

“That I’ll ‘know when the time comes’,” Eres repeats. “I’ve heard that before. And—you’ve said other things, before…”

 _“Time will tell. Perhaps we shall be the first to hear it speak.”_ The weight of Paarthurnax and Durnehviir's twin gazes upon her then, expectant, and yet patient all at once.

 _“Call it faith if you must,”_ Durnehviir tells her, now. _“I have faith in you, Dovahkiin.”_

As if to reassure her, to provide some comfort, Durnehviir presses the very tip of his snout against her stomach. Her hand lifts to touch the scale of his hide automatically, and lift just as quickly—but there is no rot in what she feels there. She brushes the tips of her fingers against the rough scale upon his long snout once more, taken aback by how strong and solid and _new_ they feel beneath her hands.

 _“The youngest of our brethren. The very Last of our kind. Perhaps,”_ Durnehviir murmurs, pulling away from her, _“you may yet be the greatest of us all. You need only reach for it.”_

Eres turns away from him, sighing. The portal to Sovngarde beckons.

“I don’t know what that _means_ , Durnehviir.”

 _“You will.”_ He says to her. _“When—”_

“When the time comes, yes—I got it.” Whatever the hell that meant. How the hell is she supposed to know ‘when the time comes’ if she doesn’t even know what is coming in the first place? Her death? Alduin’s?

 _“You will,”_ Durnehviir assures her. He sounds far more confident in her abilities than she thinks she’s ever felt, even at her strongest. _“Have faith.”_

“In what? The Gods?” She almost wants to scoff, but perhaps blaspheming right before walking into Sovngarde isn’t the greatest idea. It was _their_ fault she was even in this position to begin with. If the gods were so all-powerful, why couldn’t they have stopped Alduin themselves instead of making a mortal like her to do their dirty work for them?

 _“In_ ** _you_** _,_ _”_ Durnehviir says. _“Have faith in yourself, in what you are - in what you_ ** _know_** _. You **know** , Eres. You just do not know that you know it yet._ _”_

“Thanks,” Eres mutters. “That’s a monumental help.” If anything, this conversation has only served to stress her out further. But—if she’s going to die here, die in Sovngarde, she has to at least thank him.

“Thank you, Durnehviir. For everything.” He tilts his head at her, almost curiously. “For helping me all this time. I—” she swallows, feeling guilty despite herself. “I wish I could have found a way to free you from them.”

In response, Durnehviir blows a thin spout of fire that licks at her robes, as if in scolding.

 _“Nonsense.”_ He says to her. _“You have done more for me than you know. There are many in this world who would say the same, I am sure.”_

Eres hears something like a calling, then. Something like the sound of her own name. Not with her ears, but somewhere deeper, somewhere unknowable. There is the pull beneath her skin, the beckoning, a _knowing_ that she could not have said where it had come from.

It is the oddest feeling, then, to look at the portal to Sovngarde, and feel that she somehow knows what is beyond it. That she somehow knows what waits for her on the other side.

Not Alduin—not him, alone. Something else. Something different. Something that falls just short of reaching her. Something that she must reach for herself.

She does not hear a voice. She does not see a spirit. And yet she knows. There is someone waiting for her on the other side. There is someone there she is meant to meet. There is something there she is meant to see. Something she is meant to do, beyond just Alduin himself, beyond anything within her understanding. It is simply there, and she must go to it.

“Oh,” she says, and that does not quite feel adequate. “I… I think I have to go, now.”

 _Not long now,_ she hears, in her own voice. In her own mind. _Not long at all._

 _“Go,”_ Durnehviir urges her gently. _“It is time.”_

 _Time,_ she thinks, almost absently, as her feet move of their own accord. _It_ _’s time, now._

Sovngarde beckons her. This, something in her knows, is what she had been made for. Eres takes one last step, and—

_“Time to wake up.”_

Eres steps forward, and the world shifts.

There is a cool breeze tugging at her robes. There is a wide path ahead of her, steps fit for a giant leading downward into a valley swathed in a thick, impenetrable fog. At either side of the path, the statues of hooded figures rise high into the sky above her, dark, shadowed faces pointed in her direction almost as if there is something within them that watches her.

They are still and silent when she looks at them. They move when she does not. When she steps forward, and looks up again, the statues behind her have pivoted, shifting to face her once again. To watch her.

For a moment, the strange air of calm that had come over her is shattered at the grip of a sudden panic in her heart, a sudden flash of a sandstone temple, of watchers just like these that had not been so benevolent—of statues that chased her through an underground priory, that sapped the life from her when they came too close, that had nearly crushed her in a long hall she had only narrowly escaped from, and—

Eres blinks, and the moment passes. She is not in Nenyond’s Priory, back in Coldharbour, running from the sentient statue-like beings who meant to drain her for daring to live. She is in Sovngarde. The watchers who look upon her now do so with something that somehow feels like expectation, like curiosity, like knowing. She feels eyes upon her, she feels attention, but not malice. Not hate. Not danger.

Eres breathes. Her heartbeat slows once more.

She is not in Coldharbour. She is in Sovngarde, and she is safe from Molag Bal’s machinations. He is not the one she needs to worry about, now. He has no power here. No matter how much he might wish he did.

Eres looks at those statues above her, and wonders which had come first. Was there anything sacred that Molag Bal had not found some way to corrupt for his own gain? Was there anything in this world or the next that had not been defiled by him?

Eres looks away. She tells herself these watchers mean no harm. It does not stop anxiety from crawling up her spine at the knowledge of those who remain behind her, out of her sight.

She looks over her shoulder more than she would like to admit as she descends, and yet, aside from turning to face her, they do not move. They do not chase her. They do not reach for the life in her and drain it from within. They observe, and nothing else.

Stepping down into the valley feels like stepping into another world entirely. The air is heavier, denser, harder to breathe. Each step feels as though she trudges through mud or wet sand rather than a well-beaten path. If she holds her hand before her, she can just barely see the tips of her fingers through the thick mist that blankets the area in every direction.

Were someone to ask her later, Eres could not have told them how she navigated within the valley. She simply walks, and it feels as though she is moving in the right direction. More than once, she remembers Serana’s warning of this very valley - that those who were unworthy would be doomed to wander it forever. Eres is almost certain it is these very mists in which Alduin feasts upon the souls to gain his strength. Even so, it feels as though many hours pass before she comes across any at all.

What is terrible about it is that she does not recognize him, when he bumps into her. With the mist as thick as it is, one can hardly see more than a couple of feet in front of them, and she gets little more than a glimpse of the man whose shoulder slams into her own as he passes. A glimpse of alabaster skin, of dark, greying hair messily arranged on the head of a reasonably tall man. It isn’t even his face she recognizes.

It’s his coat.

When she turns her head to look after the man who’d run into her, her eyes fix upon a coat of fine black brocade, fit snugly around a trim waist with long tails trailing to the knees. She _knows_ that coat.

She steps after him as he fades from view, frowning, walking briskly to close the distance before he can vanish into the fog. She knows that coat, and that head of dark hair, and those broad shoulders that spoke of a man who had done manual labor, before, but did not anymore.

_“Dad?”_

It’s a longshot. She’s almost certain it’s him, but she also knows how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of souls must be wandering the Mists within Sovngarde. What were the chances that she would stumble into her own father? Slim to none, and yet, she cannot keep herself from asking. From needing the confirmation that it is him, or that it is not.

But the man stops suddenly where he stands. He does not turn to face her. He instead heaves a great sigh, his shoulders dropping, and sinks to his knees in the dirt.

“How many times?” He asks, and his voice is the one she knows, the one she would recognize until her dying day. Only it is not the firm, stern voice she remembers, but that of a man who sounds utterly broken. “How many times must I be tormented by her memory? Is it not enough already?!”

“Dad,” she says again, and he sighs, and she sees his hands raise to press against his face.

In that moment, she does not yet feel sorry for him. What she feels then is not sorrow or pity, or even sympathy, but frustration - he won’t even turn to face her? Did he think she would just go away because he’d said she tormented him? Had the Mist simply been eating away at his own guilty conscience, or had he just gone mad for how long he’d been wandering?

She moves until she is in front of him, until she can kneel and look into the face of the man that had raised her.

She had meant to confront him immediately. To ask him of the things she had wondered since his death - why had he never told her that Auria was alive? Why had he been so hard on her? How did he die, really? But the moment she lays eyes on him, her voice dies in her throat.

Eres sits back on her heels. The man sitting in front of her now is not the same man she remembers. Her father had been a proud, egotistical man. She’d even go so far as to say that he had a bit of a god complex, believing himself to be so far above those around him. The man sitting before her now is—he is as pathetic as she had always truly felt he was, on the inside.

Had her father always looked so haunted? So gaunt? So terrifyingly slim and frail? Or had the mists of Sovngarde taken his physicality from him as well as his mind?

Or, perhaps - were her own memories of him distorted, colored by the weakness she had felt as a child? Compared to the likes of vampires and the undead and dragons and _Molag Bal_ , her childhood fear of her father seems laughable in comparison. He’s just a man. A human man. A broken, weak man who tried so hard to become bigger than himself that he’d walked into his own demise for it. His pride had been his downfall.

“Dad,” she says again, very evenly. He has pressed his hands against his eyes, holding them closed as if it might keep him from seeing her. “It’s me.”

Finally, the man sighs once more, and drops his hands to his lap, his shoulders sinking ever further. He looks at her with eyes that look near-sunken with tiredness, with deep, dark circles beneath them. He does not look at her like a man who has not seen his daughter in years. Rather, he looks at her like a man who is very tired of seeing her, and can do nothing to stop it.

“What is it?” he asks, his tiredness plain in the dreadful sound of his voice. “What have you to guilt me for this time? What other sins must I repent for? What kind of god is it that—”

He pauses, suddenly, blinking. His eyes sharpen as they search along her features, as his brow furrows. He straightens, slowly, regarding her with such suspicion and wariness that she even feels a bit out of place.

“You look…” He eyes her very carefully, his form tense. “Different,” he says slowly. “Older…”

“I am older.” He frowns. “It’s been almost three years since you died.”

“…Years?” He asks, voice hollow. “Three years…?”

“Yes,” she says, and she cannot tell if he believes her. He looks rather like she’d told him the sky was green. “Just about.”

“Then that…” He looks at her again, his frown deepening. He reaches out with one of his hands, and almost fearfully, brushes the very tips of his fingers against her knee. Then a whole hand grips at her, then both of them at her shoulders as his eyes widen, turning wild with feverish intensity.

“You’re _here_ ,” he breathes, and his lips spread with almost maniacal glee and then—

Then, his brow furrows once more, and he releases her with not some small amount of uncertainty. Of discomfort. Of dismay.

“Eres, my girl—if you’re _here_ , then…” He deflates all over again, looking at her with such profound melancholy that she almost feels sorry for him. “You… So young?” He asks, his voice wavering and thin.

“I’m... not dead,” Eres says, realizing what conclusion he must have come to. Not yet, anyways. 

A brief flash of relief crosses his face. then, confusion. “Then why—“ 

Eres’ gaze searches his face. He is the same man she remembers, in a way. He looks exactly as he had before he had died. His long, almost gaunt features. The deep set of dark eyes. His greying hair and beard, once neatly trimmed and now scruffy after days of neglect. 

Her heart clenches in her chest, clenches with a knot of emotions she’s not sure she can untangle. Grief, for the loss of him - he had been her father, and she had loved him for that, even despite all he had done to her. Resentment, for all the things she’d never had the courage to say to his face while he was alive. Pity, for knowing that if he is here, it means that he will spend an eternity in this valley, wandering until the end of time. She does not know if even his treatment of her is worth such a cruel fate. 

“It’s a long story.” 

Her father’s eyes shift, sweeping across what little he can see around them. He shifts, tries at a wavering smile that she thinks is meant to be inviting. 

“I have nothing but time?” He asks more than says, a request more than a statement. “If you do.” 

She doesn’t, really. She should focus on finding Alduin. But this—meeting her father here, of all places, of all the souls of the lost she could have run into... she’s sure there is a reason for it. There must be. 

“Okay,” she says, and his eyes shine with such gratitude at her acceptance that she feels uncomfortable. It feels wrong for him to look at her that way. 

“We should walk,” he says, standing quickly and offering a hand up. “How long has it been?”

“...Almost three years now, Dad.” She repeats, and wonders if he’s lost his memory as well as his mind. She’d only just told him not moments before. 

But her father stops walking, staring at her with open disbelief. 

“That’s impossible,” he manages, after a moment. “I’ve not been here more than a few months at most, I’m sure of it. Weeks, even!” 

“Dad,” Eres starts, half to explaining it before she realizes it herself. 

Time passes differently in the realms of the Gods. It certainly had in Coldharbour. For Serana and the others, she had only been missing a few weeks. It had felt like months for her.

If the realms within Aetherius were anything similar, it was possible it did only feel like a few months or less for her father - but that would mean she has far less time to defeat Alduin and return home than she’d thought—that is, assuming she manages to live through it at all. 

How long has she been gone from Nirn now? An hour? Two or three? How much time will have passed in Nirn by then, if her father’s timekeeping was accurate at all? 

If a few mere months in his time meant nearly three years in hers, then... 

Eres runs through the math quickly in her head. If she assumed three months here in Sovngarde is roughly equal to three years, then...

Each day spent here could mean nearly two weeks back in Nirn. And that was if her father hadn’t overestimated how long it had been for him. The less time it had actually been for him, the worse the difference would be... 

She does _not_ have time to waste here if every few hours meant another day had gone by, or worse. 

“Eres?” 

“Sorry, I...” She shakes her head. “Time passes differently here compared to the living world. It may have only been that long for you, but it was longer for me.” 

Her father frowns, clearly still confused. “Then... how old are you now? How many birthdays have I missed?” 

If nothing else, her father had never been the type to forget a birthday. It was the one day a year she could be certain he would be nice to her. 

“Well,” she says, shrugging, “you died in the summer. My birthday was just after that. So just over three. It’s...” Well, her birthday would be coming up again. If she makes it out, that is. “I’d be turning twenty-five this year. But it’s not for another month.” 

Her father lets out a long miserable sigh. “Almost four,” he murmurs sadly. “I never even saw you marry.” 

“I was only twenty-one, Dad.” 

“Plenty of girls marry before then,” her father says smartly, eying her shrewdly. “But if you had, it’d have been to that scraggly boy—what was his name again?” 

She almost laughs. She might have, in other circumstances. Marry _him_ , of all people?

“Claude.” 

“Right, that one.” Heinrich grimaces at the thought. “Perhaps it’s best I didn’t live that long.” 

“Dad.” 

He raises his hands defensively. “Now, now—I know you liked him. Doesn’t mean I have to.” 

She rolls her eyes good naturedly, when she’s sure he won’t see it. “I wouldn’t have married him.” 

“Oh? Hiding things from me now, are you?” 

She eyes him carefully, but his expression is still perfectly at ease, almost jovial. He is teasing her, not upset. 

“No,” she answers him, casually. “I never had anyone before you died.” 

His brows raise, and she knows she’s walked into a trap.

“Before I died, hm?” He prods. “And you’ve someone now, do you? Who dares? What boy do I need to haunt?” 

“You’re not going to haunt anyone.” She hopes. She’s fairly certain he can’t just choose to haunt someone arbitrarily. She certainly hopes not, anyhow. “And it’s not a boy.” 

“Ahhh...” He nods almost sagely, as though she’d told him something he’d already known. “A refined taste, then. What’s she like? What’s her name? Does she have a mother, perhaps? One who’s died and may be wandering the mists as well?” 

She very nearly calls him an idiot to his face before remembering he is her father, and not a friend. 

“Her mother is still alive, unfortunately for you.” Sort of. As ‘alive’ as a vampire could be, she supposes.

“Bollocks,” he says flatly. “I suppose I shall remain untethered, then.” 

“I don’t think she’d be your type anyhow.” Gods forbid—her father and Valerica? A match made for Oblivion, clearly. She’d hang him from the rafters.

“So, this girl you mean to marry?”

Eres flushes despite herself. “I’m not—we haven’t been together that long yet. It’s still early.”

Heinrich raises a brow, clearly unconvinced. “Would you wish to marry her?”

Eres looks away from him. She doesn’t want him to see how much the question bothers her. He’d pry, and she doesn’t want prying about it just now. She doesn’t want to think of the things she may never have. There’s no use thinking about Serana now. Not when it would only distract her from what she is meant to do.

“That’s neither here nor there,” she deflects, and by the look on her father’s face, he knows it, too. “I don’t have much time, but I need to know. I need to…” She needs to be _sure_. “How did you die?”

Her father frowns, his brow furrowing. “Shouldn’t you know?” He asks.

“I thought I did.” Eres sighs, but even when she thinks of it now, she still cannot separate which is real and which is not. Both scenarios - her father drinking himself to death, or being murdered - seem equally as real in her memory. It’s merely a matter of which she believes in. She can remember both clearly enough, at least, that she can place herself at the discovery of his body, if not in the following moments. His murder is foggier, harder to pin down, and that makes her half-certain that it is the truth, rather than the easy one. She just needs confirmation.

If it is the truth that he had been murdered, and not killed by his own negligence, then… That would mean Romulus may be someone she would have to take more seriously. Someone she would need to—Eres swears under her breath. If she dies here, and Romulus is truly as dangerous as Claude believed he was, then she would have no way of warning the others. She could trust that Serana would of course do her best to protect those Eres held closest to heart, but if she wasn’t expecting him…

“I have trouble remembering, sometimes,” she tells him vaguely. “I just want to be sure what I’m remembering is what really happened.”

For a long moment, Heinrich is silent. “Had I the time…” he says then, shaking his head.

Eres frowns at him. “I didn’t realize you had somewhere to be.”

Heinrich’s eyes narrow at her, flashing with an all-too-familiar indignance. Eres presses her lips together, forcing herself to hold his gaze, even as her body tenses for a reprimand she’d walked right into. Even as memories come to her unbidden - not the good ones, not the ones that makes her remember that he is her father, and that she had loved him, but the others - the ones that remind her of just why she had hated him.

_Her father, barging into her room without invitation. “Are you taking a nap at this hour?”_

_Her answering grumble, “Well, I was planning on it,” dripping of the very sarcasm she knew all too well her father hated. She hadn’t even seen the strike coming. He’d wrenched her up out of bed only to send her rocketing back into it with a slap hard enough to make her ears ring. It’d been the first and only time he’d ever lost his temper enough to strike her in the face. To hit her where the evidence might have been visible for all to see._

_“What have I told you about that mouth of yours?” He’d snapped, eyes dark with fury. “Just like that rotten bitch of a mother,” he’d muttered, hate twisting his face into an ugly grimace. “Get up. We have company.”_

_The sound of her heart in her ears. The burning pain of a welt on her cheek, growing more painful by the second as the numbness of shock wore off. “Yes, sir.”_

_“And stop that sniveling. I didn’t even hit you that hard. You’d better be decent when you come down.” The door, slamming behind him as he left. The rattling of the knick-knacks on her shelf, jostled by the force of it. She’d sat down at her vanity and resigned herself to another miserable day…_

She’d had to call in one of the servants, that day. Her father had been furious for her delay, but he’d have been far worse if she’d come downstairs with the evidence of his mistreatment plain on her face. The servant hadn’t said a word to her as she’d spread the powder on her cheek, burying the mark of a too-large hand beneath it. She hadn’t even been surprised. Hadn’t reacted at all. It wasn’t the first or the last time one of the servants had borne witness to her father’s temper.

She braces herself, but the reprimand never comes. She watches him breathe, watches as he pushes that anger down inside himself in ways he had never done when they were alone. Even seeing it now brings no comfort. Merely a reminder of how often she’d seen him do the very same if she acted out of turn in public, in front of those Heinrich could not risk his reputation in front of. It only ever meant that worse would come later.

Sometimes he forgot.

Most of the time, he didn’t. She’d spend hours, entire days on the edge of a muted panic, dread curling low in her stomach until she felt too nauseous to eat. There were days she would burst into tears at the sight of her front porch, knowing that the threshold of that doorway was the only thing protecting her from his wrath. Those were the worst of them. He hated seeing her cry. Part of her still thinks it’s because he hated feeling like the monster he was, knowing he struck such fear and trauma into a child. Part of her thinks he got something out of it. Some level of control or power he didn’t have anywhere else.

Most of her has refused to think of it since he’d died. Just one of the many things she’d filed away to deal with later, and never had. And now that box is opened, and all of its ugliness is laid bare inside her, poisoning her from the inside out. Reminding her that no matter how long she’s been free of him, he will always be the warden of a mental prison she’d only fooled herself to believing she had escaped.

She’d never escaped it at all. She’d dressed it up. Made it pretty. Made herself forget it was there. But now she can see the bars all over again, trapping her inside. Trapping her real self behind them. Pushing against her at all sides until she conforms to what she knows he wants of her, until she becomes the shell of a person he’d molded her into.

She wants to rail against it. To break the bars open and scream and shout at him, to make him _feel_ what she’d felt, all those years ago. To make him understand just what kind of person he really was, underneath all his delusions of grandeur and nobility and false chivalry. To break the illusion of himself he’d crafted, to shatter his self-image until he was forced to see reality, _her_ reality—to make him confront it. To force _him_ into a prison of his own, to force him to be crushed beneath the weight of his sins against her.

To make things right. To make him _pay_ for it. It’s what he’d earned. This, the Mist, the endless wandering for eternity, the torment he must suffer here—he’d _earned it_. But it’s not enough. It’s not enough until he’s as broken as she is, and he isn’t. Not yet.

She feels it, building beneath her skin. The rage that’s been sitting in her since—since before she can remember. Since she was old enough to realize what he was. Who he was. Since she was old enough to understand him, to watch him, to analyze him, to know what he wanted from her and adapt. Since she was old enough to craft the very first mask of many she would wear throughout her life.

The perfect child. The simpering fool. The meek, dependent girl who never stepped even so much as a toe out of line, who bowed and prostrated herself before him, who bent to his will and fed his ego and need for power and control. The girl who’d pushed until she’d found the boundaries, and then had never neared them again. The girl who’d learned to cry on command not from sadness or anger or frustration but for _survival_ , who’d learned to use what little conscience he had against him to protect herself. Who’d learned the right things to say and do to appease him.

The girl who’d managed, by just fourteen, to have every mood, every look, every sigh and grunt and scowl and glare mapped out in her mind, a code, a cypher to the whims of a man who could not be understood or reasoned with, but merely sidestepped and appeased. The girl who’d managed, at just fourteen, to have avoided the worst of his anger for well over a year. The girl who, by sixteen, had not been struck in nearly three years.

The girl who, by sixteen, had traded welts and bruises of the physical to that of the emotional. Who had traded the instant gratification of hitting her to the long, drawn out punishment of being berated and lectured for hours on end instead. The girl who’d told herself that was better. That it was an improvement.

The girl who’d told herself that _she_ was in control, not him. That it was _she_ who manipulated him, not the other way around. That the puppet had become the master, with the master none the wiser.

Sixteen year old Eres had been a fool.

Twenty four year old Eres is older, and at least a little bit wiser. She bites her tongue. She lets the anger fester in her chest, sitting hot and heavy where it nearly chokes her. She doesn’t say a word against him. It’s not that she doesn’t want to.

It’s that she can’t.

Eres is twenty four. She had spent three years free of him. She has faced things far more dangerous and powerful than her father, and lived to tell the tale.

But she had spent twenty one of those years under his thumb. Twenty one years of making herself small. Twenty one years of fearing him. Twenty one years of victimhood that can’t be erased simply because she wishes it could be.

“Romulus.”

Eres’ mind snaps to attention, to a laser-sharp focus that almost drowns out the heat of the anger in her, the cold dread of the fear in her, and even the nauseous roiling of the self-disgust. Afraid. Of _him_ , of all people? She’s beyond this. She’s better than this, and yet…

“Romulus?” She asks him. “The man who wanted my mother?”

Heinrich’s brows meet sharply. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve met him.” Eres says plainly. She doesn’t miss the flash of alarm in his eyes. “Once. Claude works under him, now. He told me about Romulus’ obsession with Auria.”

Her father’s expression twists. “ _Auria,_ ” he mutters darkly, scowling. “That damnable woman, you—” He pauses, suddenly, mouth snapping shut so suddenly she hears the sound of his teeth clicking together. He stares at her, an uncharacteristic wariness growing on his face. “I never told you her name,” he says quietly, his wariness growing into open concern. “Tell me it was Claude who told you, Eres. Tell me she’s not back in the Empire.”

Eres’ jaw clenches. She’d known. She’d known he’d been lying, she’d _known_ —but to hear it from his mouth was a different thing entirely from merely suspecting it. “You knew she was alive.”

“Of course I knew,” he spits, glaring at her. “Do you think me daft, girl?”

“You told me she was dead.” Eres keeps her tone as flat as she possibly can. If she lets her anger show, if she lets anything show he disagrees with - she’ll be lucky to get anything out of him at all.

“If I hadn’t, you’d have never stopped asking about her.” Heinrich says, and the worst part of it is that he looks at her like she should _thank him_ for it. “It was bad enough all that—that nonsense she put in your head. Do you know how long it took me just to get you to wear a bloody pair of _shoes_?” He scoffs. “You were better off thinking she was dead. Means you wouldn’t keep asking, and you wouldn’t keep _looking_.”

“Why?” Eres does not allow the ‘nonsense’ comment to bother her. She’d always known how her father had felt about Bosmeri culture. “Why did it matter if I wanted to find her when I grew older? That was my right—”

“Your _right_ ,” Heinrich scoffs again, waving a hand dismissively. “Certainly, your right to involve yourself in matters you couldn’t possibly understand. Your mother was _dangerous_ — _is_ dangerous,” he amends. “Romulus’ obsession with her makes her dangerous, on top of everything else she is—Gods all know what other nonsense she got up to on her own time. Keeping you away from her meant keeping you _safe,”_ he insists. “I did what I did to keep you safe.”

 _You couldn’t keep me safe from yourself_ , Eres almost says, and does not.

“What do you know about Romulus? About his obsession with her? What’s his angle?” If she survives this, she needs information - she needs to know what he _really_ wants. How to keep Auria out of his hands. Why Romulus wants her to begin with would be a start. It couldn’t be as simple as just some obsessive love story - there had to be more. “What does he want, actually? Why would he kill _you_ , if Auria is who he wanted to begin with? Are you even sure it was him?”

“Of course I’m sure.” Heinrich says, frowning at her. “Who else would it have been?”

“Would you like a list?” Eres doesn’t have one, but that’s not the point. “With all the gambling you did—”

“ _Gambling_?” Her father lets out a bark of incredulous laughter. “Is that what you think it was?” He presses a hand to his face, runs it back through his hair, then back to his chin, scratching at a beard that has never looked quite right on him. “Gambling,” he mutters, more to himself than her. “What low opinion of me you must have had…”

She doesn’t answer that one. He wouldn’t be happy with it if she did. “Was it not?”

“No, you—” Heinrich presses his lips together, breathes in through his nose. He starts again, his tone carefully leveled, “No. It was not gambling. I was paying for protection. Protection from Romulus,” he says. “They raised their prices every year. Knew I had a price on my head and they could extort me all they wished to. I paid them as long as I was able. And then,” he sighs, shrugs helplessly. “One year I couldn’t.”

“That still doesn’t answer the question of _why.”_

The longer she talks to him, the more frustrated she is. She can’t even tell how much of what he says she can take as the truth. Her father always had a way of spinning stories to make himself seem like the wronged party, to make himself sound like the victim, or alternatively, the hero. How much can she even trust anything he says, when he could be lying just to cover his own ass? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’d lied to her face.

“Why would Romulus even want you dead to begin with? Auria was gone by then.”

“Yes,” Heinrich says pointedly, raising his brows at her. “And who do you think facilitated her escape?”

She very nearly laughs in his face. She only just manages to swallow it. “You exiled her, Dad. She told me.”

“She,” Heinrich says flatly.

“Yes.” Eres confirms. “Auria.”

His expression darkens. “You’ve met her.”

“Yes,” she says again. She does not add _‘sir_ ’. “I have. She told me what happened the night she vanished. That you’d called the guard on her, and had her exiled from the Empire.”

“That’s correct.” Heinrich says, through gritted teeth. “What she neglected to tell you was that it is that very exile that saved her life.”

“Are you going to try convincing me that you were protecting her all this time?” She can’t keep the derision from her voice, the open disbelief.

“I _was_ protecting her!” He snaps, bellowing the words at her so loudly that she flinches without thinking. He sees it. He settles. He breathes.

“Romulus,” Heinrich starts again, his voice again carefully level in the manner of a man keeping a tight rein on an escaping bull of a temper, “wanted Auria. My time here has—revealed things to me,” he says, so reluctantly she imagines that admitting it must be as painful for him as pulling his own teeth out with a plier. “Things I did not see, when I was alive. Things I did not _wish_ to see.”

“I was…” Heinrich brings his hands together in front of him, wrings them in a manner that is all too reminiscent of herself. “I was not a perfect man. Only the gods are perfect. We are all flawed, and I was no exception. I—allowed my temper to get the best of me. More often than not. I… believed,” he says haltingly, his words coming slow and precise, “that I was a good father. Perhaps I was not a good businessman, or a good politician, or even a good husband—but I was a good father. I told myself that I was a good father, if nothing else.”

“I have…since come to realize…perhaps I was not. Not always. A good father.”

Eres stares at him. Stares at this man who speaks as though he can only manage a few mere words at a time. Stares at this man who had raised her and not once, in twenty one terrible, terrible years, _not once_ in her memory, ever admitted that he was anything less than perfect. Never admitted that he was wrong. Not once.

“I like to believe I was, most of the time.” Heinrich says quickly. His defense of himself comes easily, comes out in rushed jumbles of words. His admissions of guilt come instead in stammers, in halting, limping sentences. “But I…could also be…bad. At times. To you. Angry, when I should not have been. Overbearing. When I should not have been.” He swallows, his mouth forming around a word he cannot bring himself to say aloud.

“The point,” he says, switching gears suddenly, “Is that, I may not have been a good husband. Or perhaps I was not as… good a father as I thought I was. But,” he says, his eyes burning with intensity, “I _was_ a good man, Eres. Your father was always a good man.”

“Dad—”

“I knew he wanted her. Romulus.” Her father says quickly. “I knew it as soon as I saw her. As soon as I saw _him_ see her. I knew what he’d do to her if he ever got a hold of her. I was the one in rooms with these men, in meetings with them, behind closed doors. I know the kinds of things they talked about. The kinds of things they _boasted_ about,” he says, lip curling with disgust.

“Exile was a _mercy_ compared to what Romulus would have done had he ever gotten hold of her. When she approached me, I knew. I married her. I cannot say whether I ever loved her. She was always a damnable woman, too hardheaded and—headstrong, and stubborn, and—” He shakes his head.

“Auria was all the things I did not want in a wife. In a mother to a child. But things happen. And then there was you. There is nothing a man respects more than another man, Eres. You are old enough now that you should understand this. Romulus couldn’t have her so long as _I_ had her. Perhaps she wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy, either. None of us were. But no matter how bad a husband I could be, I was a _saint_ compared to him. But she—”

His expression darkens once more. “She wanted to leave me? Fine. So be it. No loss of mine. But _you_?” He shakes his head. “You, I would not lose. You were _my_ child, before you were hers. You were _my_ heir. I would have let her leave peaceably had she left on her own. But she tried to take you from me, tried to steal _my_ baby from me—”

There it is - the real reason he’d exiled her. It hadn’t been _protection_ , no matter how much he wanted to believe it had been. He’d exiled her out of anger. He’d exiled her as punishment for trying to take what he had considered his.

“So yes,” Heinrich says shortly. “I exiled her. Back to her home. Back to Valenwood where she belonged. It was all she ever spoke of, anyways. Were she a proper woman, she might have even thanked me for it, eventually. Making sure she stayed out of the Empire meant that Romulus could never reach her, even without my marriage to protect her from him. You wanted to know why Romulus wanted me dead? That’s why. I stole what he wanted from under his nose, and I dangled it in front of him like a prize trophy. Every gathering. Every party. Every event - Auria on _my_ arm rather than his.”

How much of Heinrich’s noble attempts at protecting Auria had merely been a ruse for him grabbing for power? How much of it had been merely Heinrich brazenly holding himself above a man he already knew was dangerous? How much of it had been only for the sake of showing another man up, and gaining some status as result?

How much of what anything Heinrich said could she even take as truth?

“I paid handsomely to keep his men from carrying out his orders. Until I couldn’t. And then,” Heinrich tosses his hands up at his sides resignedly. “Then there was nothing else I could do.”

“Say I believe you.” She doesn’t. Not entirely. Heinrich could only be trusted to talk himself up, no matter what the truth might have been. Perhaps there was _some_ truth in what he said - but filtered heavily through a lens that painted himself as the chivalrous, noble hero saving a damsel in distress. “Why didn’t Romulus ever come for me? If he wanted Auria. I look just like her.”

“A better question,” Heinrich says slowly, his expression grave, “is why hasn’t he come for you _yet_?” He steps close to her, his gaze urgent and imploring. “Were it possible I could guarantee he would never take you as substitute… But I cannot. You are old enough now that you look just as she did when she came to the capital. And men like him have always cared more for the outside than what is within. You _may_ be enough to satisfy him. For a time. Until he decides he wants the real thing. Or…”

“If it is true that you have met her,” he says, “then that means she has returned to the Empire. She is no longer safe from him, and neither are you. Do not underestimate him. Romulus himself is just a man. But he is a man with powerful, dangerous connections. He is a man who has entrenched himself within a web of like-minded individuals who will stop at nothing to seize power where they might find it. Whether that is politically… or that over a woman they see as conquest. You will never be safe so long as he breathes.”

“I’ve faced worse than him.” Eres is—she would be lying if she were to say she’s not started to feel a bit uncertain of her initial judgment of how much of a threat Romulus could pose. Her father is now the second man who has impressed upon her just how much more powerful Romulus is than he seemed. Claude was one thing - he’d spent his life at the foot of the man, as a normal human at the bottom rung of an army. Her father, a man who had broken bread with some of the greatest men the Empire had to offer, if only from a distance - that was different.

Heinrich had met powerful men. Mages, warriors, kings and emperors alike, probably. Eres herself had even met some of them. For a man like her father to also fear him, especially her father, a man who had never once shown or acknowledged any weakness in his waking life… That was different. That meant that Romulus _could_ be as dangerous as Claude said he was.

“I’m the Dragonborn,” she says, when Heinrich asks what it is she has faced that could be worse than Romulus. “I’ve—” she does not tell him about Coldharbour. Not then.

“I was a Vigilant, for a time. I fought dremora. Summoners. Witches. The possessed. I’ve fought dragons. And vampires. Master vampires, the Lord of an entire nest of them.” With help, yes. But she’d still fought them. “And I have to fight Alduin.”

“Alduin is—the black dragon, yes?” Heinrich asks uncertainly. She nods. “He is… He is powerful,” he admits. The threat of Romulus is forgotten entirely in the face of that which Alduin poses. “I’ve seen him hunting here. A few times. But I think he depends on us,” he says slowly. “I think he’s not as strong as he seems. Otherwise, why would he bother with remaining here in Sovngarde, with using this mist as cover to hunt us poor unfortunate souls down? A _dragon_ shouldn’t need to employ such cowardly means to feed, if that is all it was.”

Her brow furrows. “You’ve seen him?”

“Only from a distance,” Heinrich waves a hand vaguely in front of them. “The mist clears if he’s nearby. I assume so he can see, or perhaps from his wings—I’m not sure. But I’ve seen him snatch men right from the ground. Always unexpectedly. He never gives them a chance to fight them. And,” he turns a slow circle, frowning, and stops with an irritated huff.

“I can’t tell from here which way the Hall is. I saw it, when I came here first. On the hill leading into the Valley, straight ahead.” He mimes the approximate location of where it would have been, had he been standing at the top of that hill now.

“There’s rumor there’s a warrior there, one of the warriors who fought alongside Shor. And all the warriors who made it to the Hall after they died.” He looks at her, eyes hard. “I’ve never seen the mist clear so that the Hall was visible.”

She realizes, suddenly, what her father must be getting at. “You think he’s avoiding it?”

“I think he’s avoiding anything that could put up a proper fight,” Heinrich confirms. “If he got too close to the Hall, they’d come for him, wouldn’t they? And they’d be stronger than any of us would be, feasting in there, with all their power and their honor. If he’s wanting to hunt, why would he choose the weakest?”

“Pack animals tend to pick the weakest,” Eres offers, thinking of wolves, of coyotes, of any wild predator, really. Even vampires wouldn’t typically go for the strongest.

“Pack animals,” Heinrich says. “Not dragons. If he wanted easy pickings, why could he not go back to Nirn? He wasn’t here before. He was there before, wasn’t he?”

“He was.” Eres chews at her lip. “Odahviing said he’s gathering his strength here. By feeding on them—the other souls here.”

“Exactly,” her father says. “Whoever that is—I think they’re right. If he’s gathering strength _here_ of all places, that means he must be too weak to do so in the living world. And if he’s trying to gather strength, why would he not hunt the strongest and take them instead? It would certainly be quicker. _If_ he was capable of it.”

Eres considers it. She considers the Hall, full of noble warriors who had earned their place. And then of the poor lost souls in the Mist, who wandered aimlessly for eternity, exhausting themselves until they could go no further, only to pick themselves up again and do the same, over, and over, and over again until the end of time.

If it was easy pickings Alduin wanted, the Mist was certainly the easiest place he could find them. And Eres knows what her father has only guessed at - that Alduin is using the power of their souls to fuel his own strength. If that was the case, why _wouldn’t_ Alduin attack the Hall itself, if he was so all-powerful? If there were warriors there who had fought at Shor’s side as her father had said, they could only be the kind of warriors who could stand at the heels of _gods_. Their souls, however few, could offer Alduin far more power than any measly lost soul within the Mists could.

Unless, of course, Alduin knew that he _couldn’t_ hunt the warriors there. Unless Alduin was not strong enough to feed upon them. Unless Alduin feared that they would destroy him if he ventured too close.

“You’re _sure_ about this?”

“Sure as I can be.” Heinrich nods. “Sometimes, we run into other people here. Not for long,” he says, shaking his head. “The Mist separates us eventually, no matter what we do. But I’ve met a few people, here and there. And you know what we are all meant to do - to try to find the Hall. That is our punishment for our failings in life, to search endlessly for what we can never attain. Even when we know it’s pointless, still… Even the glimpse of the true Sovngarde would give a man hope. Would give a man something to fight for. To keep going for.”

Heinrich looks at her, then, eyes sharp with the very intelligence he had used to gain access to some of the most powerful men in the Empire.

“Not a single person I’ve met has ever seen the Hall. And not a single person _they’d_ met had ever seen it. Which means Alduin’s _never_ been near it, so long as he’s been here. He’s avoiding it for a reason.”

Eres’ heart begins to pound in her chest. A different feeling settles there, drowning out even the anger and hurt that had built just from speaking with her father again after all these years. A feeling she has not felt in - in far longer than she would care to admit.

 _Hope_.

If what her father says is true, and Alduin _is_ too weak to face the warriors at the Hall, then—she has a chance. She has a _chance_.

“I can—” She swallows, past a suddenly thick tangle of emotion that catches in her throat. She—could she really? Could she really manage this on her own? Could she really finish this, once and for all, and make it back home again?

Could she see Serana again?

“I can beat him,” she manages, hollowly, and the words feel foreign on her tongue. She doesn’t think she’s ever said them aloud. She doesn’t think she’s ever even thought them. “I can beat him?”

“You can do anything you set your mind to.” Heinrich says. She looks at him, and there is such—such misplaced _pride_ on his face that she feels uncomfortable. “I’ve always told you that. I know I—I know I said… a lot of things to you. Not all of them kind. But never once have I ever doubted what you could make of yourself if you tried. You’re my daughter. You’re meant to surpass me. You’re meant to be so much bigger than me, or your—mother,” he says, with some difficulty. “So much more than all of us. That is all a parent wants, good or bad. I’ve always told you. You can do anything.”

Unless he disagreed with it, that was. But she can at least appreciate the sentiment.

“And…” Heinrich swallows suddenly, a strange, unreadable expression coming over his face. “If you’re Dragonborn - that means… You are a dragon, in all but flesh. You can absorb the souls of dragons, can’t you?”

Her brow furrows. “Yes?” She asks more than says, really, uncertain of what he’s getting at. “I can.”

“Then,” Heinrich says, reaching to clutch her at the arms, to pull her close and look her in the eyes. “Then you can take mine, can’t you? You can absorb mine.”

“ _What_?”

“You said it yourself,” her father says hurriedly, rushing the words out so quickly they nearly tumble over each other. “Alduin’s here to gather his strength, by absorbing _us_ —by taking our souls. He’s a dragon. And _you’re_ Dragonborn, and you can absorb souls just as he can. Which means _you_ can take strength from us, too. Which means—” Her eyes widen as it sinks home. “You can take me, take _my_ power, whatever I can offer—to help you beat him.”

“Dad, _no—”_

 _“Yes,”_ he insists. “I’m your father. It’s my duty to protect you. To build you up into the best that you can be. I wasn’t able to do that for you. I wasn’t able to be there for—” he swallows, and, gods forbid, is he going to _cry_? “I wasn’t able to be there for you. For all of it. Hardly even a fraction of it. I couldn’t see you marry, or have your own family, or—be a grandfather…”

Carry on the family legacy. Restore the so-called noble bloodline he’d always cared so much about. The one thing he’d wanted from her. He’d never cared, really, what profession she went for, so long as it wasn’t something he felt was beneath her station. He’d only ever wanted a grandchild. He’d even once joked that she could do just about anything else, marry anyone she pleased, girl or boy - so long as she gave him a grandchild, one day.

“So let me,” Heinrich implores her. “As your father. Let me do this last thing for you. Let me help you, one more time. Let me—” By all the gods, he _is_ crying, and now _she’s_ going to cry, because he’s never cried before— “Let me make it up to you.”

_“Let me make it up to you.” Her father, seated awkwardly at the edge of her bed, a hand gentle on her ankle. A tap, tap, tap, of his finger against the bone. Wanting. Waiting. “Anything you want, Eres. Anything at all. Let me make it up to you.”_

_“Ice cream?” He suggests. “How about a swim at the lake? You can bring your friend. I’ll buy him ice cream, too, even—”_

_“I don’t want ice cream.”_

_Silence. A beat. A tap, tap, tap, against her ankle. The tapping stops. The hand around her ankle tightens, not painfully. He releases it a moment after, rubs the area with a gentle hand as if to apologize even for that much._

_“I’m sorry, Eres. I didn’t mean—” A sigh. The hand leaves her. She sees his shadow on the far wall, head in his hands. “I swear I’ll make it up to you. Whatever it takes.”_

_Eres sits up in bed. Faces him. “I want Niu back.”_

_He looks at her. His expression fractures, just for a moment, with an emotion she cannot name. “I—” He nods. “Is that what you want?”_

_“That’s what I want.” Eres says it, because she knows he won’t. Because it’s the one thing he can’t give her. Because it’s not **easy** , and it shouldn’t be easy. She should never have made him think it was easy to be forgiven. “I want Niu to come back.” _

_“Okay.” He says. Just like that. He’d do anything to make it up to her. He’d say anything to feel like he could be forgiven. He always had. (She’s never forgiven him. Not once.)_

_Niu never came back. Heinrich told her she’d returned to Valenwood, but he’d find her another Bosmeri girl to serve as her tutor. But none of them would have been Niu. She’d never forgiven him for that. Never forgiven him for that day. Never forgiven him for getting rid of her, the one connection she had to her mother. He’d never made it up to her, and he never would._

“Just this one last time,” her father pleads to her, pulls her into a hug that feels more like a trap than an embrace. “Let me make it up to you. One more time.”

She pushes him away, wiping tears from her eyes she’d never given herself permission to cry. She hates him for putting this on her. She hates him for making her choose. She hates him more still for reminding her just how weak she is around him. 

“You can’t just—that’s not how this _works._ You’re supposed to be here. You’re supposed to—to _repent_ , for all the things you did, for all—” _For all the things you did **to me** , _she thinks, but doesn’t say. “And if I took you, if I did to you what Alduin’s doing to the others, that’d be it. You’d be _gone_ , period. There would be nothing left of you. You’d be gone forever.”

“I’m already gone forever,” Heinrich says, shrugging helplessly. “I’m never going to magically come back to life. My fate is to wander this valley forever. I’ve never heard of anyone making it out, anyways.” He shrugs again. “But this—I could at least _mean something_ , if I did this. I could at least help you, where it matters. And I could—”

“And you could be free of it,” she realizes numbly.

Selfish. _Selfish_. He never does anything without thinking of himself. Even if it is for her. Even if he says it’s for her.

“You wouldn’t have to spend your eternity wandering here if I took you. You’d get to be free of it. You’d get to be finished with it all.”

Heinrich nods. “I’ve learned my lessons.”

 _Have you?_ Her brain fires back, immediately.

“What more can I learn here? What more can I be tormented for that I have not already? I would merely be wasting space here. And—it’s only a matter of time before I am his target, as well. Between you or Alduin, I would rather it be you.”

“That’s not—”

“Eres.” Heinrich’s voice shifts, shifts in the all-too-knowing tone of a parent who is speaking to a very stubborn child. But it pulls her short, stops her mid-thought—because he sounds _patient_ , and she doesn’t remember him ever sounding like that before.

“It’s your destiny to fight him. _Alduin_ ,” he says. “The World-Eater. Destroyer of Worlds. He who could destroy us all, if he tries. And maybe he’s weaker than you expected. But he is still powerful. He could still kill you. He could still… He could still end your life before it even began.”

Heinrich’s hand comes to the side of her head, brushing through hair that is longer now than it had been when he had died. He’d always wanted her hair longer. She hadn’t grown it for him. He smiles all the same, wistfully.

“You’re a _child_ , girl. You haven’t even _seen_ what the world has to offer you yet. You have—a lady, back home, yes? A lady who would probably be very upset if she never saw you again.” Eres swallows. “A lady who you seem to love. A lady you might marry, one day. Perhaps—give me that grandchild I always wanted. You have so much of your life left to live. Let me help you see it. Let me help you live long enough to see it.”

“I can’t help you fight him. I’m no warrior. I’m no mage. I was just a man good with words.” Heinrich says softly. “And even then, I wasn’t—I wasn’t a good politician. I got myself killed. I wasn’t a good husband. I drove her away. Her, and every woman that followed her. And maybe, in life… I wasn’t a good father, either. Let me be one now. Let me make it up to you, Eres. One last time.” His hand grips too strongly at her shoulder, not of violence but with emotion. “Just one last time, Eres.”

Eres could say no.

It’s what he deserves. Her father deserves his fate here in Sovngarde. He deserves to wander the Mists until the end of time, tortured by his own conscience, by his own sins. He deserves to spend every last moment of the rest of his existence regretting the things he had done wrong in life. Regretting the way he had treated her. He deserves nothing less than to pay for all the wrong he’d done in the world.

To her. To her mother. To the women he’d treated like dirt beneath his shoes. To every other person in the world he might have hurt that she didn’t even know about.

He _deserves it_. If there’s anyone who does, it’s him.

And yet—

Eres has been faced with men she had felt had been beyond redemption. The one man she had damned herself, with Stendarr’s authority behind her. The one man who had brought such unthinkable suffering upon the world that leaving him alive would have been a worse sin than his execution. Harkon, too, who had brought about his own demise, and deserved nothing less than the retribution Serana had brought him. Molag Bal, too, whose influence on the world was darker than any she could think of.

Her father had not been a great man. He’d certainly not been a great father. But he had never been—he was not a _monster_.

Perhaps she would never forgive him. Not really. But she could also not bring herself to condemn him to suffer for time immeasurable. There is a part of her that hates him, that despises him, that had wanted him dead long before she had discovered his body.

But so too, there is a part of her that is her father’s daughter. That had loved him, the good parts of him, that had seen the human in him beneath the beast that lashed out against her when she angered him. That had seen in him a man who was not perfect, nowhere close, but—a man she still loved, deep down, despite his flaws. Despite how much she hated him, too.

She is her father’s daughter, and she has never been merciless. Her father, _he_ could be merciless. _He_ could be vindictive. He had been, against Auria. Perhaps even against Romulus. He could be prideful, and unyielding, and too caught up in his own ego to ever consider anything other than what _he_ wanted. 

But she is not him. She never has been. She's lived her entire life trying to be the very opposite of him. If they had switched places, she knows - if she had been like him, she would let him rot. She might have even rubbed salt in that wound. Part of her still wants to. If she were like him, she'd let him suffer, and she'd feel justified for doing it. Not even simply justified, but _right._ She'd never question that decision. 

But she knows that she is not him. She could never damn her own father to that miserable existence, no matter how much the darkest parts of her had hated him, no matter how much those very same parts of her had wanted him dead. Had even rejoiced a little at his passing, because _finally_ \- she was free. 

Those were the ugly parts of her. The parts of her she doesn't let see the light of day. The parts of her she buries, the parts of herself that she despises for how much they remind her of him. Her vindictive streak, at times, wanting vengeance when she knows that it would accomplish nothing at all. Her pride, too, in who she is, in what she's done, in taking poorly to criticism. Her temper. 

The very temper she'd always drowned in front of him, the very temper she had buried for most of her life. That white-hot anger that swallows her up on the inside, that's too much to bear, that she shoves into a little box and never calls on until she needs it. Because she had never wanted to be like him. Because _he_ could not control his temper. But she could. Because she was better than him. 

She's better than him. 

She does not know how she knows how to take him. It’s not as though she’s ever done it before. But her hand presses against the center of his chest, above a heart that no longer beats.

Flashes, then, of her father’s body stretched across a table. Of sitting numbly at the side of the bed, eyes fixed upon his chest, thinking: _If I stare long enough, he’ll breathe. He’ll breathe again. He has to. He **has** to. _

“I can’t forgive you.” She tells him, and the sound of her own voice, watery thin, shatters whatever thin veneer of control over her own emotions she had. It feels as though her chest caves in, as though something within her is ripped apart and exposed and set aflame, as though—as though the grief is as raw and new as it had been the day he died. As it had been the day she’d found him.

But she has to tell him. She has to make sure he knows, before the end of it. She has to make sure he understands that _this_ \- this isn't forgiveness. He's not absolved of all the wrong he had done to her, of all the wrong he had done to others. He's not forgiven, he hasn't repented, he hasn't paid for his transgressions - and he never would. 

“This doesn’t make it up to me. Not even this could make it up to me.” Nothing he ever did could be enough.

Heinrich presses his hand over her own. Squeezes it gently. His smile is thin, and sad, and all the things that break her on the inside.

“I know,” he says. Something pulls at her. Or rather, something in her pulls at him, unraveling him at the seams, drawing his energy within herself, tangling him up inside her somewhere that she could not have found again if she tried. “But it’s a start.”

She is a raw nerve, a broken bone, an open wound exposed to the elements. She burns with the pain of it, burning and freezing in equal measure as the chill of grief takes hold of her anew, as he—

As he is nothing, so is she.

Eres drops to her knees in the mist. She screams for the loss of him, for the loss of herself.

She screams for the mercy that is not a mercy at all. Not to her.

Not to her.

At her waist, an old, rusted horn shines anew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so as i said earlier: very difficult chapter to write for various reasons. i rewrote the heinrich scene, i am not kidding, 4 or 5 separate times because it just was not working as i wanted it to or didn't fit the vibe or just. felt Off. i FINALLY managed to get this version i liked and felt got across the message i wanted to. just. phew. very heavy stuff. 
> 
> BUT, there's a couple things about this chapter i want to make 150% clear just in case to clear up any confusion. 
> 
> 1\. Eres does not forgive him, nor does Heinrich's sacrifice even remotely make him less of a complete and utter shitbag. But, the thing about abusers, about villains, even, is that they think they're right. No one ever sees themselves as the villain. They are always the hero of their own stories. Heinrich was a man who did terrible things, whether accidental or on purpose, but managed to justify them to himself, or even feel as though they were the right thing to do. The point of this scene between Eres and her father is not to humanize him, or make the reader pity him, or anything of the sort. It is merely to provide closure for Eres herself, while also not stumbling into the pitfalls of an unrealistic, 2D villain of a dad. The way Heinrich talks about himself will be very familiar to anyone who's ever dealt with an abusive, manipulative person, especially a narcissistic one. They always manage to present themselves in the best possible light, whether it is the truth or not. They also often even sound reasonable, from the outside looking in. That's one of the reasons abuse is so hard to see in some cases, because abusers can appear very normal from the outside looking in. I just wanted to make it clear that making Heinrich out to be a good guy in any way is not the intent of this chapter. 
> 
> 2\. Eres' reaction/PTSD: There's a moment near the beginning of the interaction that Eres regresses to what she once was with her father - that is, non-combative and appeasing, rather than rocking the boat. This is an instinctual reaction, and not necessarily representative of her as a character currently. Some might find this OOC - it isn't. Abuse, especially that of a parent, has long-reaching consequences on a person's mental state. The Eres who is more upfront and blunt toward the end of the encounter is the Eres that we recognize, who has managed to push past that trauma response of shrinking herself down to avoid his temper. 
> 
> 3\. The Horn: If you remember, the Horn of Stendarr became rusted when Eres accepted Molag Bal's invitation to Coldharbour, despite her doing it for a good cause. It was hinted in previous chapters that the rusting may have been due to Coldharbour itself. That was not the case, and in fact the first explanation given earlier in the series of Stendarr's abandonment is actually more appropriate. The Horn's restoration, in this moment, is not linked to Stendarr's realm of forgiveness, but rather his realm of "Merciful Forbearance", or as I like to think of it, Mercy and Self-Restraint. Eres would be well within her rights to condemn her father just as she had condemned Altano, or Harkon, or even Molag Bal. Had Eres acted selfishly - that is, by condemning him, acting on her desire of retribution or vengeance, Stendarr would not have forgiven her. Eres sacrificing her own self-interest and personal "vengeance", so to speak, against her father, to allow him to finish his penance, even if in exchange for a small modicum of power in return, showed a selflessness and devotion to mercy that even Stendarr had to recognize. 
> 
> 3b. Eres is, in essence, just a fundamentally selfless, righteous person. She has always placed her duty before herself and her own interests. But Heinrich - choosing whether to condemn him or to offer him mercy, was, in a manner, the ultimate test of her character. She passed. But not without consequence. It took a very heavy toll on her to allow this - to let go of a pain and hate that she had spent much of her life fostering. It's not meant to be an especially pretty scene. Sometimes, healing can only begin when you learn to let go of the things that hurt you. 
> 
> 4\. Finally, I hope that the intent of this chapter is received well. Again, I want to make clear that the Eres/Heinrich scene is NOT about forgiving her father or humanizing him. It's about Eres facing one of the largest wounds of her childhood and starting her path to healing from it. It was a closure she desperately needed before she could move forward.


	26. Dreamer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go

Eres does not know how long she remains there, in the place where she had erased her father’s spirit from existence. Not necessarily because she loses track of time, but rather because time in Sovngarde cannot be tracked at all. There is no day and night, no movement of the sun that she could gauge the passage of time by - even if she could see it.

Eres only knows that she remains there until she remembers how to breathe without pain, without everything in her shuddering and threatening to fall apart at the seams. Somehow, the loss of him a second time—this permanent loss of him, is more devastating than the first. Somehow, it feels almost as though her grief following his death had merely been delayed, pushed aside until just then, until she had seen him fade before her eyes.

She had taken him into herself, and somehow, it had felt like she had killed him herself. It had felt like it was her own hand who had driven that dagger into his back. It had felt like the ache in her had opened up and swallowed her whole in a way it never had, back then.

Perhaps, back then, there had been a part of her that had never accepted his death. Perhaps she’d never really processed it. Perhaps seeing him die, again, for good this time, and by her own hands, had merely been the key to unlock a door she had forgotten she’d closed.

It takes some time for her to pick herself up again. It takes some time for her to dry the tears from her cheeks, for her to feel like each breath would not suffocate her.

But in time, she recovers.

Or, she remembers how to swallow it again. How to bury it. How to lock it all away until the gaping hole in her chest is not the raw, jagged ache of grief, but rather the cold numbness of - she’s not sure what. She’s not sure there’s even a name for it.

Whatever it is, it’s that numbness that allows her to stand again. That allows her to have the energy, the strength to move again. That allows her mind to open again, to listen, to hear—to understand.

It’s not over yet.

She still has to face Alduin. And that’s not even the whole of it. There’s still that tugging beneath the surface, that knowing prickling at the back of her mind, urging her forward, urging her toward what she hopes will be the Hall - the understanding that there is still someone waiting for her, some _thing_ waiting for her, that she still is not quite finished here, Alduin or no.

She’d thought, when she’d seen him, that he was it. That the feeling she’d felt at the portal, the feeling that there was someone waiting for her, had been him. That perhaps she had been drawn to him from beyond. It was only after he was gone, and that feeling had not diminished, that she realized that it was not.

Perhaps she had been drawn to him. She’s not fool enough to believe that her attachment to him had nothing to do with how she’d managed to find him in the Mists, of all places. Of all people. She knows, likely, that meeting him here may have been inevitable. That maybe this - taking him into herself, letting go of him, letting go of - of things she cannot name, just now, had been part of what she had come here for.

But it is not all that is here for her, and she knows that, too.

Just as she could not have said how long she had remained in the place she had absorbed him, she also could not have said how long she walked within that valley. The journey had seemed endless, aimless, pointless, and more than once she had questioned - what if _she_ was unworthy? What if, after all of the effort she had gone to, she could not even reach the very thing she needed to defeat him?

Perhaps it took only minutes. Perhaps it was hours. Perhaps it was a full day. Eres could not have said, and no one else could have known.

But eventually, the road she walks on turns to grass beneath her feet. Eventually the flat grounds turns to a gentle incline, until she is climbing up the side of a gently sloping, grassy hill.

Until eventually, she realizes that she can see several feet in front of her, rather than inches. And then several meters. And then, it is as though she blinks, and there is no mist at all, and she stops short, and her brain stops short, and it feels like time itself stops short around her.

What she sees before her does not make sense, and it takes several long, strained moments for Eres’ mind to catch up to what she sees sprawled out in front of her.

There is the grassy hill she stands on. In the distance, so far away that she can see mist curling up between the hill she stands upon and the ground _it_ stands upon, rising from within a deep, immeasurable chasm that separates the two, curling in light, airy wisps around what looks as though it could have been the rib cage and spine of a giant of a giant of giants. She has never seen a skeleton so incomprehensibly _massive_ , so unfathomable as to stretch what could have been a quarter mile across a canyon.

And at the very end of that — spine? — is quite possibly the largest, most gargantuan building she has ever seen. Even Dragonsreach or the Blue Palace or any castle she’s ever seen would pale in comparison to it. It was as if someone had taken a normal, human-sized building, swelled it to several thousand times its size and laid it across an expanse so large that she could look one way and then the other and still not see either end of it.

 _That_ , Eres realizes, is Sovngarde. That is the very Hall she has been searching for.

And she is right at the foot of it. Mere steps away.

Well, several hundred steps, perhaps, but steps nonetheless.

It’s not until a hand lands on her shoulder that she realizes she is not alone.

“What brings you, wayfarer grim, to wander here, in Sovngarde, souls-end, Shor’s gift to the honored dead?” A man’s voice asks her, his words practiced and precise as if recited by rote and custom.

She turns her head, and sees a shoulder. She cranes her neck back, and sees a man near twice her size and a full head-and-shoulders taller than her looking expectantly down at her, waiting for a reply.

“Who are you?” She asks him, taken aback by his sudden appearance. Compared to her father, this man seemed a brute of a man, with all of the muscle and broad-shoulders and stocky build one could expect of the very definition of a Nord warrior.

“I am Tsun,” says the man. “Shield-thane to Shor.” His brow furrows a little over dark eyes, and she has the uncomfortable sensation of his scrutiny upon her. “The Whalebone Bridge he bade me guard and winnow all those souls whose heroic end sent them here, to Shor’s lofty hall.”

Everything he says sounds like something he’s recited, rather than an actual invitation to dialogue. Is this the man who guards the entrance to the true Sovngarde, then, and tests the mettle of those who approach? He would certainly prove a match for even reasonably capable warriors, if that were the case. Eres isn’t entirely unconvinced this man couldn’t simply snap her in half if he tried.

“But you,” he says, voice steady and low and deceptively calm, “have not yet met your end. No shade are you, as usually here passes, but living - you dare the land of the dead.” His eyes narrow thoughtfully. “By what right do you request entry, plane-walker?”

She opens her mouth several times before she manages to produce actual sound. “Dragon—Dragonborn,” she manages, and she is not sure which she is more awed by - the sight of Sovngarde itself, or the beast of a man who guards its entrance. He is a _massive_ man. It would not be easy to fight him in single combat, if that’s how he planned to test her worthiness.

“Ahh.” He nods. “It has been too long since last I faced a doom-driven hero of the dragon blood.”

Tsun shifts on his feet. Eres watches him warily.

“But you,” he says, voice suddenly much quieter, much more contemplative than before. “You claim more than just that of the blood, I see.”

He reaches out, and she tenses beneath a touch that lands upon her shoulder. He squeezes. His hand engulfs her entire shoulder and part of her bicep, besides. It’s simply not _right_ for a man to be so huge.

“It has been even longer since last I stood at the side of my Thane,” says Tsun, and he squeezes her shoulder harder, until she swears she can feel the bones grinding in the joint.

 _Shor_. The poor fool thought she was Shor? She’d mantled him in Coldharbour, yes, but that’d been—months ago, now, easily.

“I’m not Shor,” she says to him plainly. “But I do need to get in.”

He raises his brows. He does not look as though he believes her. “Far be it from me to bar you from that which belongs rightly to you and yours,” he says, and he steps meaningfully aside, waving a hand towards the whalebone bridge just behind him. “They await your arrival.”

By ‘your’, Eres is fairly certain he means _Shor_. She’s also fairly certain he’s completely lost his marbles. Or perhaps he never had them. But if it gets her into the Hall, she will take it.

But who is _they_?

“Who waits?” She asks him, unable to help herself.

He raises his brows further, looking at her as though _she_ is the one who’s lost her mind rather than him.

“Why,” he says, “all of them, of course.”

All of them. _All of them_? All of them, who?

“The warriors?”

“Warriors, yes,” Tsun says, remarkably patiently in voice if not in expression. He still looks at her as though he can’t comprehend why she needs him to tell her things she should already know. “Among others. Brothers and sisters, all.”

“They’re waiting for me?”

“As have we all,” Tsun says simply.

Uncertainly, Eres steps carefully past him. She almost expects it to be a test, some kind of deception; that she will take one step onto that Whalebone bridge and he will send her careening off it for daring to try deceiving him into believing that she was Shor.

But she moves, and he merely watches patiently as she picks her way carefully to the first — rib? Vertebrae? — and he makes no move against her. He merely watches.

It takes her to get nearly half across the bridge before she trusts it enough to not look over her shoulder every other second, fearing that he might run up behind her and have her meet her end in the chasm between the Valley and the Hall. The chasm she very carefully does not look down into as she crosses, one hand braced against the ridge of a spinal column as she crosses. She tries not to think too hard about that part.

She has never been more grateful for solid land by the time she makes it across. When she looks back, Tsun is no more than a speck on the horizon at the other side. When she looks ahead of her, the doors to the hall are so massive she has no idea of how she might get them open to step inside.

She doesn’t need to figure it out. They open on their own as she approaches, gliding open soundlessly the moment she steps foot on the landing of the entrance.

The extravagance within it is so brilliant that the contrast of the dim lighting of Sovngarde - the _exterior_ of Sovngarde, rather - compared to that of the Hall makes her squint. Even as she steps inside, it takes several seconds to keep herself from squinting whenever light bounces off a particularly bright chandelier or place setting.

When she had read stories of Sovngarde being an endless feast in a meadhall, she had thought it to be metaphorical. From what she sees in front of her, it most certainly is not.

The door closes hollowly behind her, and in one fell swoop, the hall turns utterly silent.

Eres freezes where she stands, discomfited by the feeling of so many eyes upon her. The lavishness of the bounty laid upon the one long, impossibly long table in the center of the hall seems all the more ridiculous when every warrior, every man and woman near it, has turned instead to face her, eyes fixed upon her, mouths pressed tight into thin lines, gazes hard and expectant.

The moment stretches just long enough to be unbearable. Until Eres can bear it no longer.

“…Hello,” she says, stupidly. Even as quiet as her voice is, it carries throughout the entire hall, reaching the ears of every man and woman who stand within it.

“Hello, she says,” says a female warrior, suddenly, whose voice sounds remarkably familiar.

Eres spins, searching for it, only to see an all too familiar face separate from the crowd, descending from the short platform at the back of the room near the racks of mead barrels that seemed to line every wall.

This woman, Eres knows. Not _knows_ , knows, but she has seen her before. Heard her before. Watched her, before.

Watched her die, before.

“Gormlaith,” she realizes, breathing out the name without meaning to.

The woman doesn’t miss a step. She merely grins, grins to show all her teeth, grins to show a near-feral, wild glee at her recognition. She spreads her arms wide in welcome.

“At long last!” Gormlaith cries as she approaches, voice booming far louder than Eres’ had. “Alduin’s doom is now ours to seal. Just speak the word, and with high hearts we’ll hasten forth to smite the worm wherever he lurks!”

There is Hakon, too, and even Felldir - the very man who had sent Alduin forward in time to begin with.

And, a man she does not recognize, but feels almost as though she should. A man who even Gormlaith steps aside for.

“Welcome, Dragonborn,” says this old, bearded Nord man. “Our door has stood empty since Alduin first set his soul-snare here. By Shor’s command we sheathed our blades and ventured not the vale’s dark mist. These warriors now await your word to loose their fury upon him.”

“Do I know you?” She asks him, because she cannot say where she knows him from.

The man sends her a small, knowing smile. “Not in this life,” he says simply. “We await your command.”

“ _Mine_?” She asks, staring at him. She remembers Tsun, and wonders what these people must think of her. “I’m Dragonborn,” she tells him. “I’m not Shor.”

“No?” He asks, raising his brows mildly. “No,” he says again then, less of a question this time. “I believe you may be right. Still, his touch is upon you.”

“It’s a long story,” Eres sighs.

“We have time,” says the man, smiling gently.

It is, in all actuality, one of the strangest experiences Eres has ever had. It takes her several seconds to even realize that anything has changed. That anything is _off_.

But she realizes, just as she opens her mouth to respond, that the man has not blinked. Has not so much as twitched, or breathed, or made any indication that he is anything more than a statue. He is as still and unmoving as the dead, standing rooted in place, frozen in time.

 _“No,”_ says a voice, somehow both inside her head and out of it all at once. _“We do not.”_

Eres turns, and turns, and turns, and she cannot locate a single person who is not frozen. Who is still moving. Not even the fountain at the far end of one hall is moving, the water arrested in mid air, still as though it too had been frozen where it flowed.

Eres blinks, and suddenly, the hall is empty. There is not a soul within it.

She blinks again, and there is a woman, standing before her.

A woman in a long, flowing, ornate robe of a color that shifts and wavers whenever Eres looks at it. In one moment, it is the color of the clearest of summer skies, a sublime and comforting blue. The next, it is the comforting neutral greys of an approaching storm. The next, it is the gradient of deep indigos and reds and warm oranges of a beautiful sunset. The woman’s hair, Eres cannot begin to even guess at the length of, for it does not sit on her shoulders or fall down her back, but lifts and floats aimlessly in a crown of shimmering, magnificent locks about her head as though the wind itself plays amongst her tresses at any given moment.

Her eyes are the very same storm grey Eres has seen in the mirror.

Soft, full lips curl into a gentle, welcoming smile. There is a warmth in this woman’s grey eyes that sets Eres immediately at ease.

She does not know her, and yet she does. There is something in her that is almost achingly familiar, and yet so very foreign, all at once.

 _“Hello_ ,” says the woman, her voice like the tinkling of windchimes in a gentle breeze, musical and lilting and impossibly soothing. Even the aching grief in Eres’ chest, still too raw and too sore, seems distant and otherworldly when she hears it, as if the sound of her voice alone has simply blown all her worries away.

“…H-hello,” Eres repeats, flushing with embarrassment.

She is not a woman with wandering eyes. To her, Serana will always be the most beautiful woman.

This woman, however, has a beauty that is positively otherworldly. Looking at her somehow feels like an insult, as if she’s not worthy to lay her eyes upon her, let alone speak to her.

 _“I have been waiting for you.”_ Says this unknowable, unfathomable woman standing before her. The sleeves of her robes lift and dance in the air not unlike her hair. As if taking notice of her attention, the sleeves fall to her side. When Eres looks up again, the woman’s hair, too, has settled neatly upon her shoulders as though admonished for its disobedience. _“For a very long time.”_

Something soft and warm and impossibly silken touches her cheek. She realizes, belatedly, that it is the woman’s hand, cupping her face with a familiarity that Eres still cannot place. That touch shifts to the shell of her ear, traces to the tip until Eres has to repress an involuntary shudder—she cannot keep her cheeks from heating, all the same. Elf ears are very sensitive, this woman should know this—

The hand drops away. Eres does not see it, but she almost hears the soft titter of laughter in the back of her mind. The woman’s face is carefully schooled to open, inviting warmth, not amusement, and yet - Eres swears she _feels_ it, all the same, this woman’s amusement at her reaction.

 _“Much about you has changed since last we met,”_ says the woman. _“And yet, so very little.”_ There, right there - there is the amusement. The hidden laughter. The teasing.

Eres feels woefully unprepared for this conversation. “I—um,” she clears her throat. She tries to ignore the phantom tingling at the shell of her left ear. It still feels like it might be twitching against her will. “Who are you?”

 _“Surely you know,_ ” says the woman, but she does not sound offended. Still amused, really, as if this is some kind of game rather than a conversation. The woman tsks a little, shaking her head. _“Of all the Gods you came to call upon, my name never crossed your lips. Should I be offended?”_

Eres stares blankly at her. It takes her an embarrassingly long time to comprehend the implications of what she’s said.

 _Of all the gods_ … _my name never crossed your lips._

Gods. _Goddess_.

Standing right in front of her.

Eres’ mouth drops open. She should’ve—really, it should have been obvious that a woman _this_ ethereal could only have been a goddess. Somehow her mind had just not caught up to it. Not connected the dots. Could she be blamed, in the presence of a woman like this?

The woman tuts, clicking her tongue against her teeth. _“What would Serana feel,”_ she scolds gently, teasingly.

Eres flushes down to her toes. “Stay out of my head!” The words feel childish as soon as they’ve left her, but this time she _does_ hear a laugh - a real one, an audible one, not the sense of one in the back of her mind.

It’s not _her_ fault she can’t function in front of an _actual Goddess._ She’s fairly certain they do it on purpose, making themselves out to be so—so—the way they are. Eres still wouldn’t trade Serana for the world, no matter how off-kilter this Goddess makes her.

 _“Shame,”_ the woman tuts, not at all sounding like she means it. _“What is my name?”_ She asks of her. _“You know it, in your soul.”_

She does, is the thing. She does, and she doesn’t know how she does.

Kyne—Kynareth. Shor’s wife. The very goddess who the Greybeards credited with gifting them the _Thu_ _’um_ to begin with.

Now that Eres thinks of it, it almost makes sense that she would be here, in Shor’s hall. It almost makes sense that she, the Dragonborn, trained by the Greybeards, would be met by her here. It makes even more sense when she remembers Kahkaankrein, the dragon who had pledged himself to Kynareth, who she had freed - whose soul had then freed her from the grip of the mantling.

It makes so much _sense_.

 _“Yes_ ,” says Kynareth, in her soft, god-like voice again, not the gentle teasing of someone who is all too amused by her. _“Thank you, for freeing him. He served me well.”_

Eres has decided. The mind-reading thing is especially creepy. She’s not a fan. The laughter sounds at the back of her mind again, not in her ears, and Eres decides she rather is not a fan of that particular thing, either. She is much more comfortable with hearing things out loud, thank you very much.

“What…” Eres looks around. She almost asks what Kynareth wants, that bluntly. She changes gears at the sight of the empty, frozen hall again. She’d almost forgotten. “Where is everyone? What happened?”

 _“I have merely borrowed you, for a time,”_ says Kynareth mildly. Eres feels the caress of wind against her arm. Kynareth’s hand closes gently around her wrist. Eres doesn’t feel worthy of being touched by a _god_.

 _“Walk with me,”_ the goddess says, smiling invitingly at her. _“There is something we must discuss.”_

“ _Now?_ ” Eres manages, thinking of Alduin, and the mists, and how much time must have passed in Sovngarde, and—

 _“That is precisely why it must be now,”_ Kynareth says. _“We have much to discuss, and little time to do it. Come, Eresael.”_

Kynareth calls her by her full name, and not the shortened one. Eres doesn’t have the capacity of mind to wonder at what that might mean.

Well.

It’s not like she can say no.

* * *

“You’re… Kyne? Or Kynareth?”

 _“Whichever is easiest for you.”_ Kyne—Kynareth says. Somehow Kyne feels too familiar, like a nickname rather than her real name. _“There are many names that have been given me. There is even a name you have given me, once.”_

Eres pauses. Kynareth turns to look at her, smiles, and reaches to tap the pad of a finger against her cheek.

 _“Not you, I suppose,”_ Kynareth admits. _“But someone you remind me of. Someone I once held dear.”_

Shor, she means, Eres realizes. If the myths were correct, Kynareth had been his wife. Which meant she, as someone who had mantled him… Had some small piece of her _husband_ , living within her. Or had, for a time.

 _“You are not the first mortal he has touched,”_ says Kynareth. She begins walking again, tugging gently at Eres’ hand until she follows. She does not appear to have anywhere specific in mind. Eres gets the feeling they could walk for an eternity and never reach the end of the Hall, even if they tried. _“Not even the first who has grown beyond him.”_

“Beyond?” Eres parrots numbly, lost.

 _“You have met one who did not. And know of one who did.”_ When Eres looks at her quizzically, Kynareth adds, _“Pelinal."_ Eres remembers him, though she can hardly say she had met him. He had been merely a specter in a memory within Coldharbour, someone she had watched from afar. _"The other, as you know, was—“_

“Talos,” Eres realizes. She wishes she could say how she knew. _Talos_ has grown beyond Shor. Grown beyond a God. Had become a God himself.

Kynareth said _she_ had grown beyond him. But that was…

A hand squeezes around her own, pleasantly cool to the touch. If Eres closed her eyes, ignored the brush of long, wide sleeves against her wrist, she could almost pretend that hand belonged to Serana instead.

 _“That,”_ Kynareth says, her voice firmer than Eres has heard it until now, _“is what we must discuss.”_

 _Serana?_ Eres almost asks, stupidly. Kynareth turns her head to raise a pointed brow at her.

Right. Not Serana. The—the _beyond him_ , thing.

“I’m not—I’m not _Talos,”_ and even denying it aloud sounds absurd. “I’m just… one girl.”

 _“One girl,”_ Kynareth says, _“who brought waste to all of Coldharbour to prove a point.”_

Eres flushes. “Greymarch was already there. And Shezarr-Shor…”

 _“Shor,”_ Kynareth says patiently, _“was a guiding hand. **You** are the one who defeated him.” _

Without the mantling, she wouldn’t have stood a chance at all.

 _“You underestimate yourself. You always have.”_ Kynareth tuts, as though it is truly regrettable she is not more egotistic.

 _“I knew.”_ Kynareth stops walking then. Turns to her. Looks at her with something in her eyes far too close to pride for Eres’ comfort. _“They doubted. But I knew. I saw it in you just as I saw it in him. Just as any of us has seen in another. I knew.”_

“Knew what, exactly? That I was Dragonborn?”

Kynareth does laugh, then, openly. Right in front of her. She throws her head back and laughs for several embarrassing seconds, until Eres feels appropriately foolish for asking.

 _“Dragonborn,”_ Kynareth says, still smiling, eyes shining, _“is the very least of what you can be.”_

Kynareth tugs on her hand. Eres follows, and then halts midstep. They are not in the hall anymore. Not the same hall, anyways.

They are in a hall, but there is an unfamiliar door in front of them. A door the creaks open as they approach, with no light within it, with nothing but darkness beyond it. Kynareth stops just in front of it, and Eres walks no further.

Instead, the woman turns to her, looks at her expectantly. Like she should simply know what is beyond that door, what is waiting for her there, what is expected of her.

Eres hasn’t got a clue.

 _“You do.”_ Kynareth says this as fact, not opinion. _”You **know** , Eresael.” _

_Do I?_ Eres wants to ask, but doesn’t.

_“There is but one final test, just beyond this door.”_

“Test for what?”

 _“That, I cannot say.”_ Kynareth does at least sound like she is sorry about it. _“What is beyond this door is for you to discover for yourself. For you to see and understand.”_

Eres looks at it. At the too-dark shadow that lies in wait behind it. At the absolute abyssal darkness of a void within it.

She feels it. The tugging. The sense that what she’s been waiting for, what’s been waiting for her – is just beyond it. She’s almost there.

“What is it?”

_“If I told you that, it wouldn’t be a test, now would it?”_

Eres frowns. “Is this it, then?” She asks her, because there is no one else she can ask. “Is _this_ the time? Is this when I’m supposed to know it?”

Kynareth’s answering smile is gentle.

 _“The time,”_ she says softly, _“will come when you have crossed that threshold.”_

Eres doesn’t know if she wants to.

“Do I have to?”

 _“No,”_ Kynareth tells her. _“But another chance may never come. Here, and now – this is the time you are meant for.”_

“But I can say no.”

 _“You can. You have a choice. As we all do. You may refuse, if you wish. However,”_ Kynareth warns, _“it is only a matter of time before the choice will be made for you.”_

“Even if I don’t make it here?”

 _“Especially if you don’t make it here.”_ Kynareth says quietly. _“You are more than welcome to refuse. I would ask that you do not. I have faith in you. You are ready, now.”_

“Ready for _what_ , exactly?” What the hell did any of this _mean_?

 _“Open the door, Eresael.”_ Kynareth sweeps a hand toward it. _“Your awakening awaits you.”_

 _It’s time,_ Eres hears. _Time to wake up._

_Wake up, Eres._

_Wrong door._

_If she can just open the door, then—_

It strikes her, all at once.

“…This _is_ it, isn’t it?” She realizes numbly, no longer sure if she talks to herself or Kynareth. “This is—this is the door I’ve been dreaming about.”

Kynareth neither confirms or denies it. She merely watches her work through the answer on her own.

“Time to wake up,” Eres says, echoing the dream-specters she can still hear in her mind. The darkness beyond calls to her. The words ring hollowly in her mind. “This is what I’ve been dreaming about. This is…”

Eres frowns, looking at her. “If I go in there, can I fix it? Can I fix whatever’s making me sick?”

 _“You could,”_ Kynareth answers, which is hardly an answer at all, but more of one than Eres had even expected.

“But I could die.” Eres says also, because it couldn’t be that simple. It never is.

 _“You could,”_ Kynareth confirms, which is not a confirmation Eres really wanted. _“But I believe in you. As do countless others. You are capable, Eresael. I would not have chosen you otherwise.”_

Chosen. _Kynareth_ had chosen her. Kynareth was to blame for all of this.

Kynareth’s smile turns wistful.

 _“I wish,”_ she says softly, gently, _“that it could be easier. I wish that my faith in you had not placed so heavy a burden upon your shoulders. But I knew it was a burden you could carry. I knew it was one you **would** carry, while others might buckle beneath it. You held fast, and you stood strong, and you grow stronger still. There is not an ounce of me that is not proud of what you have become.” _

Eres doesn’t even know how to begin to respond to any of that.

 _“I have faith that you will prove me right.”_ This, Kynareth says with surety.

“What’s in there?” Eres peeks, leaning to attempt to peer through the small opening, but there is nothing but the darkness on the other side.

_“The Truth.”_

Eres turns back to her, frowning. “The truth about what?”

 _“Everything.”_ Kynareth says. _“It is a truth you have seen many times. But it is one you were not yet ready to know. Now, however…”_

The door nudges open another inch, beckoning her inside.

_“It is time for you to face it.”_

Eres hears it again, then, the same she had heard at the mouth of the portal in Skuldafn, the call of her name somewhere deep within from a voice that did not speak with words, but feeling, a voice she did not hear with her ears, but with her soul.

There is nothing more Kynareth can say. That, Eres knows—whatever other questions she might have can only be answered beyond that door.

Beyond the door that could kill her, if she fails whatever test lies within that dark, unknowable room.

She wishes, not for the first time, that she could have brought Serana with her. She can almost feel the touch of a reassuring hand at the small of her back, the whisper of an assurance at the shell of her ear: _“You can do this, Eres. I know you can.”_

If she does not, she will die anyways. Kynareth had as much as told her that. Whatever sickness had been ailing her would never leave her, if she did not face this final test of—of whatever it was the gods wanted from her.

But if she succeeds, then… If she succeeds, she would live. She could defeat Alduin, return to Nirn, return to the life she had been resigned to sacrifice for the greater good. She could be with Serana again, for _good_ this time, and never leave her side if she could help it. She could protect her mother from Romulus, her friends back in Fellburg - perhaps she might even get around to visiting Valenwood, too, and seeing the home of her people after all.

The pros, Eres thinks pragmatically, far outweigh the cons. There is little benefit in rejecting this, in stepping away from it and refusing to face it. One way or another, she could die. But there is only one way in which she has the chance to live, and to live life as _she_ wishes it.

“Okay.” Eres says, more to herself than Kynareth. Her heart beats strongly in her chest, cold sweat chilling her palms. She rubs them on her robes, shifts uneasily, trying to push down the nerves that want her to turn and run away from it all.

Just this one last thing. Just one. That’s all.

She can do it. She can _do it_. She can do anything she sets her mind to - if she tries.

Eres swallows, and nods to herself. Now or never.

Eres pulls the door open, and steps inside a pit of darkness that swallows her whole.

* * *

The moment she crosses the threshold, Eres can almost feel the darkness close around her. There is only an instant in which she still sees the sliver of light from the hall beyond—and then it, too, is snuffed, with the sudden snap of a door slamming closed.

The air is heavy, but still. Within the darkness of the room, there is nothing she can make out within it. It is the darkness she has sometimes encountered deep within caves, abandoned mines and ruins, the darkness of a place that light could not touch.

The sound of her steps upon the ground are strangely loud, echoing hollowly as though she walks within a cavernous void far larger than that which the door would have suggested.

She takes several steps forward, and stops, unsettled by the sound of her own footsteps, echoing such that it seems almost as though someone follows her.

She waits. She turns, slowly in place, looking all around her, and there is only the darkness, and nothing else.

“Hello?” She calls, uselessly. She feels silly, woefully unprepared, but Kynareth had answered before, and so perhaps, whatever is within this void would answer, too. “What am I supposed to do?”

For a long, pregnant moment, the darkness is as still and silent around her as it had been before.

Then, a voice, from somewhere far beyond her, from somewhere deep within her, from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

**_“What is real?”_ **

Eres spins. There is nothing behind her. Nothing on either side of her. Nothing above her, or below her, or anywhere that she can see at all. This voice speaking to her seems to have come from nothing, or perhaps it came from everything—

“What?”

 ** _“What is real?”_** The voice repeats. It sounds—sounds closer, somehow. More alive. More familiar.

“I don’t…” Eres turns again. Nothing. But—no, that is merely her eyes playing tricks on her. The darkness isn’t moving. She’s seeing things simply because she wants to see them. She must be. “I don’t understand the question.”

 ** _“What,”_** says the voice, and it sounds—it sounds so _familiar_ , to her, and yet not. It sounds… It sounds almost like herself. **_“Is real.”_**

Eres blinks, and she is looking at herself. Or—or what she _thinks_ might be herself. She reaches a hand up, lifting to touch what she expects to be a mirror she had not seen—but it is not a mirror, it is not an image, but a _person_ , standing before her. A person, solid and flesh as herself, as _herself_.

Her own bronze skin and dark hair, her own robes and armor, her own… Her own eyes, looking back at her, but they are black instead of grey, watching her, observing her, studying her.

It is not _her_ she sees. It is an entity, a being, an illusion of some sort - one that takes her own image, her own voice, and distorts it.

“What do you mean, what’s _real_?” Eres asks it.

It’s unsettling to look at. Something about it, beyond even just looking upon her own double, feels _wrong_. Something uncomfortable tickles at the back of her mind, starts a chill at the very top of her spine.

“I’m real. You’re—” she hesitates. “I’m not sure if you’re real.”

 ** _“How do you know?”_** Asks the entity that is her, but not her. **_“What makes_** ** _you_** ** _real?_** ** _”_**

“Everything,” she says, frowning.

The entity raises its brows. It makes no real expression, but Eres gets the sense it is unimpressed all the same. **_“Can you prove it?”_**

“No.” Eres admits. She can’t _prove_ she’s real anymore than she could _prove_ the sky is blue. It just is, and so is she. “But I still know I’m real.”

 ** _“How can you?”_** Asks the entity. **_“When you do not know what_** ** _real_** ** _is?_** ** _”_**

“I know what—” the entity shifts, its image warping, contorting, stretching in some places and shrinking in others, the skin tightening and paling and—Eres’ voice dies in her throat.

Her father looks back at her. **_“Am I real now?”_** It asks her.

“I don’t know what you even are,” Eres manages, barely. She swallows past a thick ball of unwanted emotion. “I can’t prove whether you’re real or not.”

 ** _“What makes me any less real than you are?”_** Asks the entity, in her father’s voice. The lack of expression, the lack of inflection in his voice makes it less heartwrenching to look at him, to listen to him. **_“What makes one real? What makes a person real? What makes a place—”_** The entity waves a hand, and the darkness surrounding them shifts.

It shifts, and Eres is standing on air, and the clouds are in reaching distance, and the whole of Skyrim is spread out beneath her. She looks down, once, and feels violently ill. The edges of her vision turn a dark, threatening red. She snaps her gaze back to the entity, heart hammering in her chest.

 ** _“Real?”_** Finishes the entity. **_“Is_** ** _this_** ** _real?_** ** _”_**

Eres does not look down. “It’s not. You—” she swallows.

The ground still feels solid beneath her feet. She is _not_ thousands of feet above the ground, floating somewhere in the sky, seconds away from plummeting to her death. She is in a room, a little dark room with a floor, and four walls, and a ceiling. And some kind of strange entity that seems adamant on fucking with her.

“You made this. It’s an illusion.”

 ** _“Is it?”_** The entity asks.

Eres’ vision swims as the world shifts again, and she is - she is on the ground. There is snow on her boots. Falling lightly onto her robes. There is an all too familiar sensation prickling at the back of her mind, the call of a break in time. There is the distant rumble of a dragon’s breath.

She turns her head, and there is Paarthurnax near the Word Wall at the Throat of the World, lifting his head and peering curiously in their general direction.

But he doesn’t seem to see them. His eyes do not meet Eres’, though Eres knows he should have seen her. Instead, the great ancient dragon sweeps his gaze from left to right, rumbling a deep, uneasy hum. He seems to have sensed something unusual, something beyond his perception. But he does not see them.

The entity looks at her. **_“Is it real now?”_**

“How—” Water bubbles up over her feet, climbing quickly to her calves, her knees, her waist— “Stop it!”

 ** _“Is it real?”_** It asks. **_“It could be.”_**

The darkness swims in again. Eres blinks, and she sees Claude. She blinks again, and there is Isran. Yosef, and then Auria, and even young Gwyn, staring back at her.

 ** _“It could be real, if you wished it so.”_** Says the entity, in Gwyneth’s voice. **_“You could have anything you wanted. Here. In this room. An entire world of your making. Exactly as you wished it.”_**

The entity begins to shift again before her eyes, growing taller, curvier, paler—

Eres’ heart drops.

 ** _“Am I real?”_** The entity asks her, raising its brows in a fair imitation of Serana’s dubious expression. It sounds like her. Looks like her. Even stands like her, in every way. **_“You could stay here, if you wanted.”_**

Not-Serana presses a cool hand to her cheek. **_“We could be together again. Make all the stories we wanted to. Remember?”_**

“You’re not real.”

 ** _“Eres,”_** it says, dismayed.

Eres steps away, disgusted and—and gutted. She had never missed a person so fiercely as she misses Serana. This, this feels like salt in a gaping wound. She feels _sick._

“Stop it.”

 ** _“Am I not real enough?”_** Not-Serana asks her.

The water is at her waist again, rising to her shoulders, rising to her chin, her nose, closing over her head—

Her ears pop, painfully, as the pressure of the water bears down around her. Flashes, flashes of memory and dreams, together as one—

_It_ _’s time to wake up._

_This isn_ _’t real. I can—_

Light, from somewhere behind her. Noise. Sounds. That of familiar footsteps upon a familiar stone floor, muffled, but clear enough that she can hear it, that she can recognize it.

A sigh she has heard many times. Just over her shoulder. From another room. Into her ear at night as she climbs into welcoming arms.

Eres spins, even submerged in water as she is and—and it is not the whole world, this time, that she sees. She is in the water, and the water presses around her, and there seems to be no end to it where _she_ is, but—

But just in front of her, there, she sees it. There is a room, a room it seems she views from a window in the world itself. A window into _her_ bedroom, one she could recognize blindfolded.

Her room. Without her in it.

It looks different from when Eres last saw it. The furniture is where it had been before, with the lounge near the window where Serana had pulled it for Eres to look at the sky after her last awakening. Her bed is neatly made. Her desk is…

Her desk is clear of clutter. There is a small portrait of her, framed and set at the center. Eres had never sat for any portrait in recent years, but it as good a likeness as one could have had. Magic could be used for such things, Eres knew, though she had never bothered. Now it sits at the center of what almost appears to be an altar, a shrine, a—

A remembrance.

Serana sighs. The _real_ Serana, not the entity. She comes into view, and Eres lunges for her, wanting to reach her, to touch her, to signal to her, to do _something_ —and it is as though her hand meets a glass pane, a shield, a ward of some kind, pressing against something invisible but solid that separates the world _Eres_ exists in, and that which Serana does.

Eres watches, helpless, as Serana reaches down to place another candle at the foot of the portrait upon the desk. She lights it with the spark of a flame at the tip of a finger.

 _“Happy Birthday, Eres.”_ Serana murmurs, and there is nothing happy about it.

Eres pushes against the pane, against the shield or ward or whatever it is that separates them—she’s not _dead!_ Not yet! And she won’t be if she can help it, just—

Just _wait_ for her. If she… If she could just wait a little longer, then…

Serana sits heavily in the chair beside the desk, head braced on a hand, staring numbly at the flickering of a candle flame. She does not move again.

 ** _“What makes any of it real?”_** The voice asks her. The water, perhaps. **_“You? Her? The world, itself?”_**

 ** _“You know.”_** Says the Voice. **_“Look at you now, breathing water as though you are made for it. You know - the laws of the world you believed real were only as real as you thought they were. You know the Truth. The Truth of it all. You have confronted it, time and time again, and you have rejected it. Time, and time, and time again.”_**

The voice in her mind, the flashes of memories, dreams that she would change, timelines that she would shift—

_Where does the ape-man sleep?_

The dreams, the memories, the realities that she had taken in her hands, shifted to suit her needs. Souls that she had touched, lives that she had not saved, but changed, but redirected…

 _Dreams without answers sink in silence_ _… The dead dream beneath the soil… Like a dream that no longer needs a dreamer…_

Eres, the dreamer, the director, the editor, the rider upon the currents of time itself. The mantle, the burden, the weight of a god behind her, within her, inside her, the touch of a phantom hand upon her brow—

 ** _Not yet_** , says a voice, voice she remembers, but not from where. **_This burden, I shall carry. Until such time that your own dream ends._**

Something splinters, fracturing, buckling beneath pressure.

 ** _“You know it.”_** Says the entity, a whisper of a growl within. **_“Even your blinded eyes must see.”_**

Water feels cool in her lungs, water she has breathed once before. A dream she could not escape until she—

Until she had rejected it.

 **_“There is no_ ** **_ real _ ** **_. This world is not real. You are not real._ ** **_”_ **

_You_ _’re wrong._ It crawls at the back of her mind, a slithering, slinking truth that worms its way into her, that infests her from the inside out, that aims to break her and everything she believes in - everything she had once known. Everything, including—

 ** _“She,”_** says the entity, dark with intent, with malice, with something of pleasure in it, **_“is most certainly not real. A figment of imagination. The product of the fragility of your mind, too weak to withstand the pressure of the world around it without an anchor, without a crutch—”_**

 _You_ _’re_ ** _wrong_** _._ She’ll prove it. She’ll prove it, all she has to do is reach her. If she can reach her, reach through this, she can _prove it_ —

Eres presses her hands flat against the pane, against that which separates her from the reality she _knows_ is true. This _thing_ wants her to accept it’s all fake, that it’s all some kind of dream? She’ll make _him_ see that it isn’t.

Eres reaches into the furthest recesses of her magic, of the power she has not touched for fear of its effect upon her, for fear of the dangers—but she will risk it, here. If she does not, she is dead anyways, and then where would she be? Trapped in this room, with this thing, until the end of time? Trapped until she admits she’s nothing more than a dream, herself?

 _Fuck_ that.

 ** _“You needed to believe good could exist even in the most unlikely of places. You needed to believe in redemption. In connection. In humanity. What is reality,”_** the entity purrs, **_“but a collection of dreams who have forgotten they are dreams.”_**

_No._

**_“No?”_ **

No. As if she’d accept that. She doesn’t care if it’s true. She could have drowned in that dream, the dream she’d almost died in. She could have let herself drown if she’d believed everything she’d seen and felt and _known_ , in that moment. But she’d known _better_. She’d known _different_. And she’d made the world listen, she’d made _the dream_ listen—and she’d make this one listen, too, if it was the last thing she did.

Her power pulses, pulses from the palms of her hands, burning white-hot with raw, unfiltered magic. The water boils where it touches her, burns the skin of her palms and fingers and wrists and she still does not let go, she presses harder, and harder, until she feels that pane, that separation, buckle beneath the pressure _she_ imposes on it, until she can feel it splintering beneath her fingertips, until she can feel each pulse sending cracks spidering along the surface of it, until—

Until the vision of Serana beyond the pane straightens, until she leaps from her chair and spins to look, to see—to see what she cannot have seen, to look for what could not have been found. Serana can’t see her, not from here, but she can _feel_ her, she can sense her, she can—she can wait for her, just a little longer.

 _I_ _m not dead. I’m coming back. They can’t stop me. Nothing can stop me. Not Aetherius, not the gods, not—_

Not the pane, splintering beneath her fingertips, shattering beneath her hands—

“Reality,” Eres answers him, as the water peels away from her, as the pane shatters and the image of Serana fractures and splinters into millions of tiny fractals, as the darkness converges upon her once more, as she pushes that darkness back and creates light in hands that glow with a power she’s never held so calmly in her own hands before, **“** is what _I_ make of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You probably have questions. Like, a lot of them. I think by now the reveal is obvious, but it will be officially confirmed in the next chapter, so I will wait until then to detail it in the endnote. However, a full explanation including references, past foreshadowing, and the points of the underlying arc from Acts 4 - 7 will be put into an author's note as chapter 29, following the epilogue. The Vigilance lore page, once complete, will also be going live on the wiki for a more in-depth explanation from beginning to end, however it is still under construction and may not be up for another 1-2 weeks following the end of the act. 
> 
> You can wait for the final author's note, you can wait for the lore page to go live at the Vigilance wiki, OR - you can join the discord at discord.gg/QB268df, and ask questions there for immediate answers. Remember to keep all discussion of the current chapter in the #spoilers channel, especially now. Otherwise, you can add me at kailan#0512 to ask further questions until then one on one, or send me a DM or an ask on tumblr @ nightinngales.


	27. Vigilance

Eres wakes with the gasp of a woman who has not breathed in far too long, with the gasp of a woman who is lucky to be alive.

Everything _aches_ , like a smoldering burn beneath her skin, and especially—especially at the very center of her chest, like she’s been branded.

Kynareth’s head swims into view above her own. There are arms around her, lifting her from the floor into a half-seated position, bracing her against a body that is pleasantly cool and smells of spring.

Eres stares at her, blinking owlishly. “Did—” She coughs, lungs burning fiercely as though hot coals have been dumped inside them. “Did I pass?”

Kynareth chuckles. “Yes.” She says, and lifts her head to look just to Eres’ right.

Eres looks, too, and stiffens at the sight of a shadow that is vaguely person-shaped, looking down at her mildly. Except it does not take the shape of a person she knows, a person she loves, and in fact does not take the appearance of anything at all except for the vague silhouette of a human-like figure.

Still, she gets the sense that it is smiling at her.

 ** _“Well done.”_** It says, and then it, too, is gone.

“Who—”Eres almost asks, and then she remembers. Serana. Serana thinks she’s _dead_. She has to get back home, and to do that, she has to kill Alduin. She’s wasted so much _time_ here, and—

“Ah. I see you do not remember.” Kynareth helps her to her feet, steadies her with a hand until she does not feel quite so dizzy.

“Remember what?”

Eres remembers the Entity. She remembers it trying to convince her—trying to show her what it called _The Truth_. She remembers rejecting it. She remembers trying to reach for Serana, and then—

And then, she doesn’t remember much at all, honestly. Just flashes of feelings, of sensations more than thoughts. Of things that she would _fix_ in the world, if it were truly a dream as the Entity had said it was. That she would get rid of Alduin once and for all. The Mist, too, while she was at it. And, for a moment, she’d thought she’d seen Mirabelle, but…

“The _Entity_ , as you thought of it,” Kynareth says, helping her to stand, “is our Creator.”

“Creator of _the gods_?” Eres asks, and though she turns to look, she no longer sees him. In fact, they are not within the chamber at all anymore, but back in the Hall - the empty hall they had been in before. Only now, the door has closed, shut tight, and not even a glimpse of the darkness that had been within it can be seen.

“Creator of _all_ ,” says Kynareth. “In a manner of speaking. We, as you understand us to be - exist within him. As—”

“A dream,” Eres realizes. “But _I_ _’m_ not—”

“Precisely.” Kynareth smiles. “That is why you passed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I would not expect you to. Not right away, at least.” Kynareth pats her arm consolingly. “We are all created by him, in a manner. The world itself, Nirn, the Realms of Oblivion, even Aetherius, the Aedra and Daedra alike - we all exist as extensions of him, of _his_ dream of reality. Those of the world who are unenlightened, who remain unaware of this Truth - they remain as they are. Living. Dying. Being. They know nothing of the Truth of the world, and are no worse for it.”

“But we,” Kynareth says, “are those who have seen it - and refuse it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Consider this.” Kynareth creates an illusion within the palms of her hands, of tiny little human-like figurines existing within a closed bubble upon a surface. “The foundation - that is the Godhead, He who creates all. This,” she indicates the bubble surrounding the little human figures within it, “is the world, as conceived by Him. All of it, every bit of the world you can imagine - all within this one, tiny dome of a universe. There are many,” she says, “who may even perceive this barrier, who may catch a glimpse of the Truth of the world.”

Within the bubble, an almost familiar-looking silhouette of an old, thin man in long robes approaches one side of the transparent dome barrier. The little figure looks at it, wonders at it, even seems to study it.

“But those who come too close to perceiving it… Their reality becomes warped, affected by knowledge they should not have and cannot comprehend. And so…” The robed man touches the barrier, presses a hand against it—and Eres watches, horrified, as the man’s hand burns as it touches it, as all of him is consumed by it, as he is reduced to nothing but ash that vanishes as soon as she blinks. In short time, there is nothing left of the man at all.

“They are consumed by this knowledge. Their mortal minds cannot comprehend divinity - not the realities of what it means. Of what it looks like. This,” Kynareth says. “Is very nearly what happened to you.”

“ _Me?_ _”_ Within that little dome, a much shorter, smaller robed figure appears in the very center. At first, it seems that nothing at all is unusual about this figure.

Then, Eres watches as it moves, as it notices the tiniest of imperfections in the barrier, as the very edges of the silhouette begin to unravel, bit by bit, and then, suddenly… As that figure lays down to sleep. As that unraveling is undone, as it is stitched back together, but never quite as strongly as it had been before. Cracks appear in this dark silhouette’s figure as it wakes again, white-hot against the black, and still it moves. And still it grows. And still it notices the little imperfections around it. And the cracks grow a little larger, a little more numerous each time.

“Your strength of mind, of will, kept you from seeing that which you could not handle. We also think,” Kynareth murmurs, her lips curling into a small, wistful smile, “that perhaps my beloved may have protected you, may have shielded you from the worst of it.” A shapeless phantom, within the dome, blocking the little robed figure’s view when it may have noticed things too big too ignore.

“I chose you, then.” Kynareth says. “When Stendarr turned his back on you, I knew. Even before Shor had touched you. I knew that you had within you the strength to persevere. The strength to confront the Truth and emerge from it intact. My power could not reach you in Coldharbour, not typically. But through one whose faith in me had never shaken, not once…”

The little robed figure stops, and the shadows within the dome converge, shifting and warping to form the shape of a great dragon, bowing its head. The robed figure - the shadow of Eres herself, places a hand upon that dragon’s head, and Eres herself watches, somewhat fascinated, the reenactment of how she had taken Kahkaankrein’s soul into herself.

“I was able to restore your mind to you, as Shor’s power had gained too much of a foothold upon you. His divinity could have consumed all of you, if I had not. What remained of him, there. What remained of him within you. But your mind was not yet ready.”

“Did _you_ make me sick?” Eres asks hollowly, looking up at her. “Was it you who sent me to sleep?”

“No.” Kynareth answers. “I admit, I know not why or how your body knew to do such a thing. Perhaps, some piece of him remained in you then, still aiming to protect you.” Kynareth eyes her, an unreadable look in her gaze. Eres gets the uncomfortable feeling that there is more that she might have said just then, but she does not. “But, it kept you from being consumed immediately. It gave us time. It gave _you_ time, to grow into yourself. To grow surer of yourself. To be what you needed to be, for you to hold fast to your identity when faced with the truth that it was forged by another.”

Eres scowls. She doesn’t care what the Godhead or—or whatever that _thing_ in there said. He hadn’t _made_ her into anything.

Kynareth, however, smiles at her, almost proudly. “Yes,” she says. “We needed just that. We needed you to face it, to learn this Truth and _still_ say—”

Eres hears it, in her own mind, even as Kynareth says it aloud.

 _“—-I am more than what you made of me.”_ The little shadow of Eres within the dome stands strong, a spark of white appearing at the center of its chest. That spark grows, and grows, until Eres must squint to look at it, and then - the dome shrinks, and the tiny representation of herself is not _inside_ the dome, but outside of it, and rather than a shadow, it is a figure of the brightest, white-hot light, arms spread wide at one end of the dome as if to grab it in its hands to shape it for themselves.

“ _That_ ,” Kynareth says, as Eres looks at this strange, bright-burning image of herself outside the dome of reality, “is what a _God_ is, Eresael. It is merely a mortal, not unlike yourself, who has awakened to the Truth of the world, and pushed beyond it. Who has refused to accept their reality, and instead asserted their own. Whose will, whose strength of self was so strong that even the _Creator_ itself could not break it.”

“You,” Kynareth’s illusion shifts, until there is no dome, no shadows of little mortals wandering about within it, nothing but the sun-bright figure of Eres’ enlightened self, “are beyond him.”

“You’re telling me I’m a god.” Eres isn’t sure who might be crazier - herself, for almost believing it, or Kynareth, for trying to convince her.

“Not yet, but well on your way.” Kynareth waves a hand. The sun-bright figure vanishes, the hall shifts, and they are no longer alone. “I am afraid even we underestimated the strength of your Awakening. We also know that you would not be so quick to relinquish your mortal life, having lived so little of it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you will remain mortal, so long as your _mortal_ self lives,” Kynareth tells her plainly. “Divine power is far too powerful to be contained within a mortal vessel. I was forced to seal much of it deep within you, so that it did not consume you. So long as you remain within the mortal realm, you will be unable to access much of your power. But, over time… Perhaps you may gain access to some of it.”

“You must, however,” Kynareth grabs her hand, squeezes it firmly, “be _very_ careful, Eresael. There are rules to godly engagement within the mortal realms. You must _not_ interfere with the free will of mortals. You must not impose _your_ will upon those around you. Be very careful not to overstep those bounds.”

“I don’t even know what that _means_ ,” Eres pulls her hand away. “What is ‘imposing my will’ on others? Convincing them of something?”

“No,” Kynareth says gravely. “You will know, if you have done it. It would take intent - the intent to shift a person’s perception, their personality, their existence - an intent to shift the reality of another, beyond the scope of your power, in a manner that removes their free will from them. Should I sense that you are overstepping your bounds, I will make it known to you.”

“…Okay?” Eres shakes her head. This _can_ _’t_ be real, and yet—and yet she knows. Something inside her _knows_ that she’s not lying. “What about Alduin?”

“Alduin… was an exception,” Kynareth says. “You removed him from reality.”

“I _what_?”

“This,” says an unfamiliar voice, “this is why she cannot be trusted to walk amongst mortals. The spark is too powerful to be allowed to roam free unchecked.” A man, now, a man as tall as any she has ever seen, an elven man, a man that feels somehow familiar. She is almost certain she has never met this God, and she has certainly never heard his voice. “She _uncreated_ a God, on a _whim_.”

“In her defense,” says another, “Alduin did mean to destroy us all. She is Dragonborn - Alduin would have been killed by her, one way or another.”

“Killed and _banished from existence_ are two entirely different things.”

“Yes,” Kynareth admits, turning to face the angry man, “but - consider that we would not have to worry for the _spark_ wandering the world, had you not decided to fling it down to Nirn to begin with.”

The man’s face contorts into an ugly scowl. “You forget your place, Kynareth.”

“And you forget yours,” Kynareth replies, entirely unphased. “Perhaps she will _unmake_ you, next.”

Beside the irate man, a woman chuckles, placing a hand upon his chest to steady him. Her skin is that of a rich, dark brown, and she looks upon Eres with warm dark eyes.

“Forgive him,” this one says, and though Eres has not heard her speak in _this_ voice, she knows who she is. “He is still sore that the blame for one of our missing sibling rests solely upon his shoulders.”

“He brought it upon himself,” mutters the first, and Eres knows his name only in context: This, she realizes, must be Auriel. He’d felt familiar because it was _his_ bow she had touched, all those months ago, in the fight against Harkon. The missing sibling could only have referred to those Gods that, supposedly, had vanished - Shor, Kynareth’s husband…

Also known as Lorkhan. He whose heart was said to have been able to turn a man into a God.

“Am I…?” Is _she_ meant to be his replacement? Is that what they meant by _spark_?

“Our power in the world has weakened,” Kynareth confirms. “The disappearance of my beloved only reduced that influence ever further. The scales have been tipped. We have managed, for some time, to maintain the balance - but not without consequence. Eventually, we would lose ground, if we did not replace those who we lost.”

“Talos was a start,” Kynareth continues, and a very familiar looking Nord man nods, his expression grave. He does not speak a word. “But the Dominion’s actions upon Nirn has reduced _his_ sphere of influence as well, despite the power he wields. We still need another to help maintain the balance, and we cannot create Gods from nothing. One must always be chosen, now, and risen, as we have done in the past. Such as Talos, before you.”

“And I,” says Arkay, with a nod in Mara’s direction.

“I’m just _one_ person,” Eres shakes her head. “I can’t—” she swallows thickly. If she refuses them here, would that mean they would kill her? Would she die, if she refused this? “I can’t leave Serana behind. I won’t.”

Mara’s warm, rich chuckle meets her ears. A comforting hand lands upon her shoulder, squeezing gently.

It strikes Eres, with some surprise, that Mara - _the god_ , Mara - is only a couple inches taller than herself. She is, like Kynareth, one of the most ethereal women she has ever seen.

“Worry not, child,” Mara says, voice as soft and honey-sweet as any mother’s could be. “I have an idea or two about that.”

Eres’ brow furrows with confusion, but Mara presses something into her hand - something like fabric, but metallic all at once. When she opens her hand and looks down, it is a necklace. A choker, with a wide black band on either side of a pendant emblazoned with Mara’s own symbol of divine love.

“Give this to your beloved.” Mara says, a private smile upon her lips. “Tell her that _I_ watch over her now. I would be remiss if I did not recognize a woman who loves so strongly.”

There is one last man who comes to speak to her. Eres could have recognized him even if he did not wear robes that resembled those she had once worn. Even if he did not look upon her as a wayward child.

She scowls at him.

“You are angry with me.”

“You abandoned me.”

Stendarr does not smile warmly. He does not seem like the type of man who often smiles at all. But he does nod.

“Yes,” he says. “I did. I judged you too harshly. I am known to be… quick to judge, at times.” Eres swears she hears Kynareth smother a snort. From the sharp, quick look Stendarr sends her, he does not miss it, either. To Eres, he says, “I am not wrong often. I am glad that I was, this time.”

He looks very pointedly down at her waist. Eres does not need to look to know what that look means, and still - still the sight of that Horn, of its surface the crisp, polished white instead of rusted brown, makes her heart ache.

She had spent well over a year of her life serving the Vigilants. After Coldharbour, she had never wanted to serve them again, but Stendarr—Stendarr, she would have always been grateful to, to some extent. Even if he had turned his back on her. To see the Horn restored means more than he could ever know.

“Thank you.”

Stendarr does smile, then. A flash of one, however brief. “Thank _you_ ,” he says. “Your vigilance will not be forgotten.”

“Just had to say it, didn’t you.” Mara drawls, watching as the man turns to walk away.

Stendarr actually smirks at her. “Eres _the Vigilant_ has a ring to it.”

Eres, looking at the lot of them, is quickly learning that _the Gods_ are not quite so different from mortals, at all. They’re just—really old, and with an absurd amount of power. She doesn’t know quite how she feels about that.

“Come,” Kynareth says, grasping her wrist. “You have a world to get back to.”

“And a woman.” Mara winks. Somehow _that_ doesn’t seem right, either.

“I can bring you to the Throat of the World,” Kynareth says. “My power is still strong at the peak. Once you are there, however, I am afraid our interference must remain minimal. You may come to us for guidance, if you wish it, but—your journey now is your own to take, not ours.”

Eres rather thinks she will do the exact opposite of ever going to them again. The Gods have never quite seemed so much like bickering siblings as they do now, now that she’s seen them interact with each other. When they had spoken to her, they had seemed so - so _beyond_ anything she could think of. Realizing they are almost _normal_ is somehow more unsettling than if they had not been.

“And you’re sure Alduin is gone?”

“Very much so.” Kynareth smiles. “Sovngarde is under my domain. I would know if you had not succeeded. Breathe, Eresael - the hard part is over now. Now, I ask only that you live. You have much to learn yet, and all the time in the world to do it.”

‘All the time in the world’, Eres thinks, doesn’t even sound real.

* * *

It has been three weeks and five days since Eres left for Sovngarde.

It has been three weeks and five days since Eres left Serana to wake alone in the Jarl’s guestroom without saying goodbye.

It has been three weeks and five days since Serana had last felt whole, and it is Eres’ birthday.

It had taken two weeks for Serana to return to Fellburg. She had remained at Dragonsreach for as long as she could stand to see the pitying glances of the Jarl, knowing that they had believed Eres dead from the moment she disappeared. Still, Serana had remained, day after day after day, waiting, hoping, praying - that she would return there. That one day, she would look to the sky and see the brilliant red of Odahviing’s hide, Eres sat astride his shoulders, victorious and alive and _home_.

Serana had returned to Fellburg without her with the promise of the Jarl hanging over her head - that he would inform her if anything were to change, if any sign were found that Eres had returned. She had known he said it only for her benefit, that he did not believe it would come to pass.

Serana has not spoken to Valerica since her return. Not since Valerica had tutted upon the sight of her, shaking her head, muttering that _this_ was why they did not fall for mortals, that Serana should have known it would not end well.

Somehow, even Auria had not been half as certain as she was that Eres lived.

_“Surely, if she had…”_

_“Surely, if she_ ** _hadn_** ** _’t_** _, we_ _’d all be dead now.”_ Serana had told her. Auria’s face had twisted, somewhere between pain and uncertainty. They had not spoken of it again, except for once. Serana had asked Auria for a portrait.

There had not been one within Fellburg. Serana didn’t think Eres would have had the patience to sit for a traditional portrait, besides, and she certainly was not the type to hang portraits of herself upon the walls, or in her rooms. Serana knew that she would not forget her, that she _could_ not—and yet, she had wanted it. And Auria, fresh with the memory of her, had supplied it.

A small portrait, one that could be framed and placed upon the desk that Eres had never kept quite clean. It was not a perfect likeness - if Serana leans closely enough, she will notice that the feather-light dusting of freckles upon Eres’ nose and cheeks are not there, but from afar, the absence of them was less glaring, as even in person, they could be light enough that one would not notice unless—

Unless they were Serana, and spent far too much time memorizing every inch of her, watching her fondly as she slept.

The ache is stronger at night, where Serana no longer has reason or the will to doze as she once would, with Eres in her arms. It had taken three days for Yosef to ask her, reluctantly, if she could restrict the pacing within her own room— _Eres_ _’_ room—at night. Serana rarely left it, besides.

Every so often, another person Eres had known hears of her—of the uncertainty surrounding her fate. Every so often, someone asks Serana to light a candle for her, praying for her safe return. There are dozens of them now, surrounding the portrait of her, and every day Serana finds reason to add another.

Serana could pull the very stars from the sky, and it would still seem like it was not enough of a service to her—to her. Not her memory. _Her memory_ makes her sound as though she’s already dead.

The others may have accepted that. Serana will not.

Today, Serana hardly needs to fabricate a reason to light another. It is the 7th of Hearthfire. Eres’ birthday.

Were she— _here_ , she would be the same age as Serana had been, now, when she had been turned. Just twenty-five. Just _twenty five_. She’d hardly even…

Serana swallows. Turns her thoughts away from that. Thinking about it in those terms hurts too much to bear. Instead, she calls a flame to a finger, watches it take to the wick.

Eres would be just twenty-five, today.

“Happy Birthday, Eres.” _Wherever you are._ Sovngarde, maybe. Serana likes to think maybe, maybe it was like Coldharbour had been. Maybe time just passed _differently_ there. Or maybe, Eres had not died, but just—just hadn’t found a way back, just yet. Maybe she’d just… make her way home, eventually.

Until then, Serana would remain. Until then, Serana would be here, holding a candle for her. Until the end of time, if need be. Until her mother tired of her moping around, she supposes.

It’s not as though she’s the only one. The whole of Fellburg has been in mourning since her return there without Eres. Isran had left - just. Climbed on a horse and took off somewhere. Serana knows, though no one else does. Isran was a private man. He would return. If Eres did. If she doesn’t, then…

Auria had wavered, half-convinced by Serana’s insistence that they wait, half too weary to hold onto a hope that seemed fruitless. She grew more despondent with each passing day. Eres’ birthday fell on a Thursday, this year. By Monday, Auria had locked herself in her room, and not come out.

Inigo has spent much of his time with either Gwyneth, or Yosef’s young daughter, Julia, who were both near as inconsolable as Auria. Serana only knows because Inigo makes them walk outside the keep every day at midday, and they pass just under Eres’ bedroom window. Serana has never joined them.

Serana sits heavily upon the seat at the desk, and she cannot bring herself to get up again.

It has been three weeks and five days, and Serana is losing hope.

There is a drawer in this desk. A drawer she had opened once, locked, and never opened again. Serana looks at that drawer now, and wonders if now is the time that she should open it.

It has been three weeks and five days, and they will have to hold a funeral soon. They will have to read the Will.

Serana has still not even read the letter. She has refused. Out of stubbornness, maybe, refusing to read it in the belief that she does not need to, that she will see Eres again and Eres could tell her herself what was in it - but perhaps…

Perhaps it is time that Serana faces the truth of it. That Eres may not be coming back. That Eres may have finally met the one obstacle she could not overcome.

That Eres might be—

Something _snaps_ in her mind—not something of her own, not _her_ mind, but—something just outside of it. Something that feels like magical pressure, like the sudden burst of a spell fired in her direction, but not—not _here_ somehow, but—

Serana leaps from her seat all the same, turning to peer at the room behind her. She could have _sworn_ she’d felt something there, reaching for her attention, watching her. Even now, she still feels like there’s something in the room with her, like there’s something… Something beyond what she can see or hear, something is _there_ , with her, and—

The room goes dark. Serana spins, spins toward the desk, toward the rows and rows of candles that have been snuffed in an instant, without cause. The desk is dark. Every candle, every _single_ one has gone out.

Serana has never been one to believe in hauntings, necessarily, but this _can_ _’t_ be coincidence, she knows it. Something’s going on. Something’s _off,_ and she’s going to find out what. And what if it’s…

Serana hears the sound of a drawer sliding open, followed by the soft click as it locks in place. She turns again, back to the other side of the room, and there is - there is the topmost right drawer of Eres’ vanity, pulled open to its furthest point.

A drawer that Serana knows to be made of heavy wood, that is almost as antique as the Keep itself, that could not have simply slid out on its own without significant force behind it to pull it open. She knows a hint when she sees one.

Serana walks to that drawer, peers into it, and her brow furrows.

The only thing in this drawer are clothes that Eres almost never wears. She kept most of her clothes in the wardrobe, and those she did not went on the left side. She had even offered the right to Serana, saying she _might as well_ since she never used it, anyways, but—but the very thing at the top of the pile of clothes in that drawer is one that Serana recognizes.

She pulls it out, holds it in her hands, turns it over carefully, half expecting something to fall out of it, some kind of message or other clue or-or something, at least. She does recognize these robes - they are the heavy, woolen dark robes that Eres had worn at High Hrothgar, that all of the Greybeards wore. Eres never wore them outside of the temple, at all, and had likely not even meant to pack them and bring them home at all, but… She’d stuffed them in this drawer, because it was the one she did not use, and now—

A light. A single flame reignites.

Serana knows, because she sees it in the vanity mirror. One moment, she is standing alone with the robes in her hands, confused and frustrated as to what it could mean, and the next - the next, she watches, with her own two eyes, as a flame just _appears_ upon one of the candles at the very center of Eres’ altar, just beneath her portrait. As it simply ignites itself, and casts a light upon the canvas, until Eres’ portrait glows at her from across the room, the only light in a room swathed in the darkness of night.

The light gutters and flickers, and yet it does not go out again. The flame grows just a little bit taller, elongating, climbing ever higher, climbing in a manner that a candleflame does _not_ do naturally, and it clicks.

All at once. It clicks.

The feeling she had felt - the sense that something was reaching for her, that someone was watching her. The robes in her very hands, just now, the opening of the drawer to make her find them, the lighting of the flame, the portrait—alone, they were insignificant. But together, one after another, the message was clear.

 _Eres_ had reached out to her. Eres is alive, and she is at High Hrothgar, and she needs Serana to find her.

Serana very nearly bolts out of the Keep right then. The faster she leaves, the faster she can be sure she is _right_ , but—but Auria should know. Auria should at least know there is a chance.

Serana opens Auria’s door, and stops short.

“Serana.” Mirabelle says, her voice thin and reedy. She stands, but barely, looking paler and weaker than Serana has ever seen her. “I expected you would come.”

“What—” It takes Serana a second to recognize the look on Auria’s face, just over Mirabelle’s shoulder. Auria meets her eyes, her gaze dark with worry and—and expectation. “What the hell happened to you?”

Mirabelle laughs, only to cough. Auria taps the woman’s shoulder lightly, tutting under her breath. A moment, and there is the telltale soft green glow of Restoration magic upon her hands.

“Eres,” Mirabelle says. Serana stares. “I—I saw her. Not moments ago.”

“You _what_?!” Serana’s gaze snaps to Auria. “You didn’t tell me?”

“Wait,” Auria says, raising her brows once, meaningfully. “Tell her what you told me.”

“I had a dream.” Already, Serana’s own brows raise. “I was—I woke, to Eres kneeling over me. She had her hand pressed to my chest, just so.” Mirabelle mimes it, pressing her own hand against the very center of her own chest. “I could feel her power reaching into me, only—it felt strange. Lighter, somehow, and heavier, denser all at once. I’ve felt nothing like it. It felt as though she was—helping me to breathe. Teaching me, as though I had forgotten. And then there was a woman beside her. Another woman, in a colorful dress. She pulled Eres away. She told her, _‘that’s enough’_ , and I woke for a second time.”

“With her students crying over her.” Auria says, her voice coiled tight, eyes dark with meaning. “They said Mira had died.”

“They _believed_ I had died,” Mirabelle replies tersely. “Certainly, it was a close thing, but I am here.”

Serana, however, looks at Auria. “Is she okay?”

“Weakened.” Auria says, pointedly, it seems. “It seems Mirabelle expended much of her magicka, if not all of it, in a bid to save the students from the explosion.” When Serana raises her brows, Auria shakes her head. “That is neither here nor there. Something happened at Winterhold - something involving a man named Ancano.”

Serana remembers him. Vaguely.

“The Archmage is dead,” Auria continues, remarkably flatly for someone professing the death of another. “Many are wounded. Mira, it seems, meant to sacrifice herself to save the students.”

“It was not so noble.” Mirabelle argues. “Sacrifice was not quite on my mind at the time. Besides, I am _fine_ , Auria. Just a bit worse for wear.”

“You look more than a _bit_ worse for wear.” Honestly, Mirabelle _does_ look a bit like someone who’d been brought back from the dead. “You said you saw Eres, in this dream? Who was this other woman with her?”

“That, I do not know.” Mirabelle shakes her head. “It was certainly a strange dream. It felt… very real, at the time.”

“I am not convinced it was not.” Auria exchanges a look with Serana. The idea that Eres could have somehow revived Mirabelle from Sovngarde is a farfetched one, but—Auria would be able to tell how much magic Mirabelle had expended. She might even be able to tell if Eres’ power remained within her, somehow, though Serana knew not how sensitive her abilities were without reaching directly into the mind itself. “I _do_ feel something of her within you.”

That answers that question. “But?”

“But,” Auria lowers her hands, her expression growing only more troubled. “There is something about it that has shifted. It feels—only _vaguely_ like her. As though someone might have taken a piece of Eres’ power, and drowned it within a vat of someone else’s. There _is_ a touch of it,” she says, “but it is drowned out almost entirely by something much more powerful. Perhaps this second woman Mirabelle saw.”

“It was a _dream_ , Auria,” Mirabelle says, tiredly.

“I don’t think it was.” Serana says. “That’s—I came here to tell you, Auria… I think she’s alive.”

There is a moment that Auria looks at her with exhaustion, as though it is something she is very tired of hearing - and then that expression shifts into something more considering as she glances at Mirabelle, and then back to Serana. “Something has changed,” Auria realizes. “Something has happened?”

“I think she sent me a message - from wherever she is. Her, or someone who wants me to find her.” Serana, very quickly, tells them of the incident within Eres’ bedroom.

Had it been _just_ the incident in the bedroom, perhaps there is a chance they might not have believed her, chalked it up simply to a widowed woman losing the last of her marbles. But with Mirabelle’s own experience coupled with it, added to Auria being able to sense _some_ residual of Eres’ power within her…

“High Hrothgar…” Auria breathes, looking at Mirabelle. “We can get there, can we not? To check.”

“ _Now_?” Mirabelle looks at her like she’s grown a second head. “Auria, my dear—in case you have forgotten, I have no power to give. I couldn’t take us to High Hrothgar even if I wanted to.”

“ _I_ could _,_ ” Auria insists. “Serana and I will provide the power, yes?” Auria glances at Serana, and Serana nods hurriedly. “You need only to direct it to the right place. Serana and I will take care of the rest. You can even remain here, if you like.”

Mirabelle looks between the two of them. She sinks back into her chair. “You really do think she’s alive, don’t you? After all this time?”

“You saw her.” Serana says. “And _I_ felt her.”

“There is no knowing until we see for ourselves,” Auria adds. She sighs, then, her voice turning soft and forlorn. “If she is not there, then… We will make preparations.”

“She’s not dead until we find a body.” Serana will accept nothing less. “And I’m going to High Hrothgar whether you come with me or not. So you can take us there - with our help - or I can go alone. It’s up to you.”

“You’re not going without me.”

“I’m not carrying you.” There’s only one person Serana is going to carry that far, and it’s Eres. She’s not a damn carriage, even for Eres’ mother.

“ _Fine!_ ” Mirabelle throws her hands up. “I’ll go. If Eres _is_ alive, then I want to know what that dream was about, myself. If she did save me, then…” Mirabelle sighs. “It seems I have more than most to thank her for, should she be there.”

Auria grasps one of Mirabelle’s hands in her own. With her other, she beckons Serana until they have all three linked hands. “You, and every last person in the world.”

“Ready?” Serana allows her power to gather in the palm of her hand, feeding it into Mirabelle’s own. “If she’s returned to High Hrothgar, she may have been taken there by one of the dragons. They’ll probably have dropped her off at the Throat of the World.”

“I know the place.” Mirabelle says, nodding to herself.

“I thought you needed to have visited it yourself to—”

“High Hrothgar is an exception, of which there are very few.” Mirabelle meets her gaze evenly. “None have attempted teleportation to the Throat of the World, of course… But the Time Wound is an unmistakable blemish. You have seen the Time Wound yourself, yes?” Serana nods. “How far is it from the ground?”

“Uh—” That’s not a question she’d been prepared to answer. “Five-five feet? Five and a half?” She guesses, uncertain. She knows it had been at least eye level to Eres, perhaps, but she hadn’t paid it that much attention in comparison to everything else. “It’s, uh—a few feet wide, I think.”

“And the ground nearby?”

“Flat,” Serana tells her. “The closest thing is the Word Wall, and that’s still fifteen to twenty feet away. You’d have to miss by a pretty wide margin.”

“It will help if you call the location to mind,” Auria tells her, shaking her head at Mirabelle. “She doesn’t need to take all of it on herself. Your power is helping to fuel the spell. You can also help direct it.”

“I’ve never teleported before.” Not like _this_ , anyhow.

“Call it into mind.” Auria says evenly. “See it in your mind’s eye. Hold that image in your head as the spell takes hold. Mira should be able to use it to help her deposit us in the right place.”

“I will manage.” Mirabelle argues. “It is a difficult target to miss.”

“Even so—”

Without warning, the world _lurches_ , and Serana closes her eyes tight. Teleporting is _never_ pleasant. Teleporting with your eyes open is significantly less pleasant still. Only when the world stops feeling like it’s tilted on an axis does she open her eyes again.

The chill of snow touches upon the back of her bare hand. She hears voices upon the wind, voices of - of the rumbling gravel of dragons, in the skies above the Throat of the World. There’s a flash of red, there, one that looks like Odahviing, and another that could be Durnehviir, and—and _dozens_ more, circling, gliding around the peak of the Throat of the World in some sort of strange ritual, and—

And at the center of it all, there is a figure in dark robes, dressed not at all for the biting cold of the peak, with a dark head of hair and—Serana blinks, and for a moment, the figure is too bright to look at, brighter than even worst of sun reflecting from snow—but she blinks again, and the sun-brightness is gone, and there is only the dark hair and dark robes and a head turning towards her—

 _Eres_.

Serana forgets Mirabelle and Auria entirely. She is upon her immediately, damn the both of them, never more grateful for her speed than when it has brought her to Eres the instant she has laid eyes on her and by _gods_ , it is her, and she is real, and breathing, and alive, and _warm_ —

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Eres says to her, and Serana throws her arms around her and squeezes that warm, _alive_ body in her arms until Eres actually squeaks. “ _Ow—_ _”_ Eres huffs, relaxing into her arms, exasperated in the way that she gets when she thinks Serana is being ridiculous and Serana has never been so _glad_ to see her look at her that way in her life. “You can let go a _little._ _”_

“No.” Serana says, fully aware that it is a rather petulant answer. She doesn’t care. Eres is _here_. If she lets go it might not be real. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

Eres winces, guilt fracturing her expression. “I—Serana, I—”

“I don’t care.” The crazy thing is that she _doesn_ _’t_. She might, in a few days. Weeks. Months. However long it takes her to forget that there had been a time where she had to think about planning Eres’ _funeral_. But right now she doesn’t. She doesn’t care what the reasons were. She’s still _mad_ , somewhere, but how can she be mad at all when Eres is _in her arms again_? When Eres is wrapped around her, when Eres is looking at her with those eyes of hers, when just moments ago she had seen her smile, at her, in real life, right in front of her and not in a daydream?

“Serana—”

“You’re _here_ ,” Serana breathes, and she squeezes her a bit tighter - briefly, because she knows that Eres is, after all, still very much mortal and fragile and she might actually hurt her if she squeezes her any tighter than she is already. “That’s all that matters. You’re _here_ , Eres. I thought I lost you. I thought—”

“I know.” Eres leans down to kiss her - far too briefly. Serana does not pout, but she is rather annoyed that she pulls away so quickly. “I'm sorry it took so long.”

“I don’t care, as long as you’re here now.” She can be upset about it later. Much later. Much, much later. After they celebrate.

It’s Eres’ birthday, after all. At least for another few hours.

“Let’s go home, Eres.”

Several things happen, all at once.

One, Eres smiles down at her, which is enough on its own for her brain to hone in on.

Two, the world warps very suddenly around them, so quickly that Serana does not even have the time to shut her eyes before she is not standing at the peak of a mountain, but rather on the stone floor of a _very_ familiar bedroom several tens of miles away.

Three, she releases Eres, allowing her to stand on her own, because she gets very dizzy, very quickly, and it takes a moment for the world to stop spinning.

“Uhh…” Eres says, as Serana rubs at eyes that ache.

“Eres,” Serana looks around them. Yes. They are definitely in Eres’ bedroom. She did not imagine that. Even the drawer is still left open, just how she left it. “What the hell did you _do_? How did you just—”

“Um…” Eres looks at her, sheepish. “…Magic?”

“ _Eres._ _”_ She knows a lie when she hears one.

“It’s a really, _really_ long story.”

Serana looks at her. Somehow, seeing Eres in their _bedroom_ makes it real. Makes it feel real. She tries not to think of the fact that they’d left Auria and Mirabelle on the mountain alone. Without warning. If it had actually been intentional, it might have even been funny.

Judging from Eres’ expression, however, and her own surprise—it clearly had not been. Eres had somehow _accidentally_ teleported them halfway across Skyrim, and Serana hadn’t even _felt_ it until it happened.

Despite the mess they are most certainly in, Serana can’t help but to smile at her. At least she knows, beyond any shadow of doubt, that it is Eres.

“We have time.”

Serana feels like she’s in for rather a lot of surprises, for the next few days, perhaps, but she is still surprised to see Eres blink - and suddenly, take in a shuddering breath as her eyes glisten, as she allows a tear to fall freely, as—as she cries not with sadness, it seems, but with such profound _relief_ that even Serana feels choked up for looking at her.

“Yes,” Eres says, smiling at her through it all. “We have time.”

Eres steps into her, pulls her down into a kiss that Serana would remember for the rest of her eternal life. Eres pulls away only long enough to say it, one more time, as if to speak it into existence.

“We have _time,_ now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said you'd be confused? You probably still are. If you don't want to wait for the final notes on the Ascension arc, you can try rereading to catch all of the foreshadowing and hints and lore references up to now, starting with Act 4. For a quick rundown: 
> 
> 1\. Was it planned from the beginning of the fic?: Not quite. I hadn't yet decided entirely on the route it was going to go until I had started writing Act 5. I had dropped a few hints here and there as I knew it was something I was considering, but, given that this is an OC story, I was trying to find other ways to tell the story I wanted to tell - that is, a neverending, immortal love - without sacrificing aspects of either of the characters. By the time I started writing Act 5, I had begun looking more seriously into the lore supporting the ascension of a mortal, and realized that it was something I could do, and that it actually fit with a lot of the themes I had already included due to the Vigilant mod - that was when I started buckling in and setting things up for the eventual reveal. 
> 
> 2\. Relevant Lore: In short, there are several lore pages you can look at to get a better idea of how this all came together. Arkay, Apotheosis, 36 Lessons of Vivec #6 (The Walking Paths), Shezzarr, Shezarr's aspects (Ysmir, Talos, etc), the Heart of Lorkhan, the Tower (in terms of ascension), and CHIM/Godhead and its relation to dreams - aka the "Simulation Theory" of Elder Scrolls.
> 
> 3\. What's up with the Gods scene?: Honestly, I wanted a way to better explain the ascension/Godhead thing through exposition without having Eres just internalizing a long ass monologue about it that would have felt unnatural. Eres not realizing the significance of what "test" she'd taken makes sense in this context, as she was never actually told the purpose of it, or given any hint that godhood was attainable herself. Kynareth explains it fairly well as far as my understanding of the Godhead/Simulation Theory lore goes in the wiki. As far as Divine power goes, I know Talos is intended to be one of the most powerful, but his worship is also banned. I've always liked that Jack Frost concept of Gods only being as powerful as however much faith remains in them, so Talos losing much of his open worshippers reduces his influence. Lorkhan/Shor is missing, Talos is weakened, etc - they need new Gods. Eres is the candidate Kynareth chose, and she chose correctly. 
> 
> 4\. Why Kynareth?: Because dragons, basically. Kynareth taught the Greybeards the Thu'um, she had a connection with Kahkaankrein in the mod, and she is depicted as benevolent and attentive, as well as Shor's wife. I thought it suited it well. 
> 
> 5\. Eres is OP?: No. She's still mortal, living in a mortal body. You could say she's just been preemptively "hired" as a god, but her full Ascension would not happen until after she dies. She is not all powerful, and can still die. She just has a job lined up for when she does. She has brief access to divinity at the moment of Ascension at the end of the last chapter, in which she only accomplishes two feats: 1) Destroying Alduin, and 2) Saving Mirabelle. Following that, Kynareth seals her power away to be inaccessible until such time as Eres dies and joins the other gods in Aetherius, as using divine power while existing within a mortal vessel would basically vaporise it. As for why/how she teleports - she does have access to a fair amount of magical power she was unable to use before without consequence. There's a bit of a learning curve involved. Note that Auria teleports in a similar manner back in Act 5 in her first scene with Mirabelle. It's less of a godly method of transport and more of a Bosmeri one, though usually not strong enough to allow for passengers. Eres has to learn to keep her magic from acting on her will - as hinted by Kynareth earlier in the chapter. 
> 
> 6\. Why make Eres a god at all?: As stated before, I wanted a way in which Eres and Serana could remain together eternally without either of them sacrificing who they were. Eres would never be okay with being a vampire, and imo, Serana's vampirism is a core aspect of her character as well. Making Eres immortal in some manner was the easiest way to achieve it, and the Vigilant mod's canon storyline of mantling Shor provided a stepping stone to using Ascension to do it. That's pretty much the entire reasoning. I just wanted immortal gays. Some may like it, some may not. If it's disliked enough, I will finish out Act 7 as planned and leave it there with a short note explaining what Acts 8/9 would have covered. If people still want more, then... stick around. 
> 
> Feel free to ask questions on discord or tumblr until such time as the lore page is live.


	28. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eyes emoji

That night, Serana spends her first night in bed since Eres’ disappearance. She does not, however, doze at all, or drift into daydreams, or spend the night thinking of what they might do in the morning or what responsibilities Eres has or what Eres might drag her off to do next.

That night, Serana holds Eres in her arms, and does not take her eyes off her.

Mirabelle and Auria’s somewhat frazzled return from High Hrothgar following their impromptu vanishing had meant she and Eres had little time to discuss what had actually happened there. To them, Eres had said Sovngarde had simply _“made things easier”_ \- as if that could explain such a thing, and said little else besides.

They had returned to their rooms, and Eres had drifted off shortly thereafter.

Serana would not complain of it, when Eres wakes. But she knows the explanation cannot be so simple as that. Even Mirabelle and Auria had not quite bought it, even as much as they had resigned themselves not to press it, with Eres’ exhaustion growing plainer by the minute.

Even now, if Serana looks just closely enough, if she focuses in just the right way - she can see something glimmering beneath the surface of Eres’ skin. If she lays her hand just so against the soft skin at the center of her chest, she can even feel it - the ghost of a thrumming center of power that had not been there before. The light is strongest there, when Serana just happens to glimpse it, sun-bright against bronzed skin, all too similar to that which she had seen on the mountain just before Eres had turned to face her.

Serana knows there is much more to Sovngarde and what had happened there than simply Alduin himself. Eres looked no worse for wear now than when she had left - not at all like someone who had faced a dragon in battle and lived to tell of it.

 _“It’s a really, really long story,”_ Eres had said, and then told her none of it. Yet.

Had this happened under any other circumstances, perhaps Serana might have cared. As it stands, Serana cares only for the fact that Eres is _here_ , with her, alive and well and sleeping peacefully in her arms.

There is a process, when Eres wakes.

For someone who often sleeps so poorly, Eres wakes with the sun no matter how late she is awake the night before. As the room begins to lighten with the soft, lazy light of dawn, Eres stirs. She sighs, turns into Serana’s chest to hide from the breaking of morning, to manage just a few more minutes of rest before the day calls to her.

Serana presses a kiss to the top of her head, feeling an ache in her chest that already feels lighter than it had in weeks. It is not for grief that it aches now, but profound and unspeakable relief and gratitude.

She had missed this - the mornings with her, where Eres is soft and sleepy and just a little bit selfish. Just a little bit of the type of girl who says, _“five more minutes,”_ and then takes fifteen.

She had missed _her_.

But it is morning, and Serana has waited hours for her to wake, and she knows from the sound of her heartbeat that she is no longer truly asleep - just lazying, lying in bed for no reason other than to put the day off just a little bit longer.

Not that Serana wants to get out of bed. In fact, she wants to do the very opposite, and with enough luck, perhaps…

Serana bows her head to press another kiss at the corner of Eres’ jaw. Eres shifts in her arms, with a soft, contented sigh.

Perhaps, with enough luck, it is still early enough that no one would bother them for a couple of hours, at least. Perhaps, with enough luck, Eres would also want to spend more than just a few more minutes in bed. Perhaps, with a bit more convincing…

Serana whispers a good morning into her ear, and ducks her head to press her lips against the warm skin of Eres’ neck. One, two, three kisses before Eres curls into her, before Eres releases another sigh that sounds not at all like the one before. The smoldering burn of hunger is at the back of her throat, urging her forward, and Serana cannot help the little nip at her pulse point, the graze of teeth against increasingly fevered skin—Eres’ pulse jumps against her lips.

Serana does at least hesitate, for a moment. She longs for Eres’ blood just as she longs for anything else of her, but she would not take it without permission - she does not make the decision until she feels Eres’ hand threading into the hair at the back of her neck, pulling her down when Serana makes to pull away. She even tests it a second time, just in case, a little nip of a warning that she hopes translates into words she can’t quite speak aloud.

“Go on,” Eres says to her then, voice husky with sleep and perhaps more, with such surety that Serana verey nearly bites her then.

She stops herself, just in time.

“Eres,” she pulls away, just enough so that she can look at her - Eres’ eyes flutter open to hold her gaze, looking back at her with a mixture of concern and curiosity. “It’s going to hurt.”

Eres blinks, slow with the languid air of early morning. “I know,” she says simply.

“At first,” Serana adds. “Just for a moment. After that…” Eres raises a brow. Serana struggles for the right words, and settles for the simplest ones. “It will feel good, after that.”

Eres’ brow hikes higher. “How good?” She asks, and there is just the hint of a smirk curling at her lips, just the hint of mischief in her eyes.

Perhaps, Serana realizes, with not a small amount of private satisfaction, Eres will not need much convincing at all.

“No idea,” is what Serana says, and that is the honest truth of it. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

Eres’ answering smile is anything but innocent. “We will,” she says, and it sounds like she is referring to much more than just that.

Serana takes the cue for what it is. She doesn’t need to be told twice.

She has ached for this since the moment they met. Since the moment she had awakened with the taste of blood on her lips in that crypt. Since the moment she had first laid on eyes on her there, fresh blood dripping from her fingers, holding herself at a cautious distance. She had wanted it often even after that, before she had known Eres was Dragonborn - outside of Helgen, when she had first suspected it. Back in the glacier at the Forgotten Vale, when Eres had been shot. And yet again, at Skyhaven, after the temptation had already nearly grown too strong to bear.

Serana had lost count of how many times Eres had bled in front of her, and how many times she had resisted the temptation of it. She is, after all, measured and restrained in all things, and that includes the resistance of the greatest temptation she had ever faced in her eternal life - that of the blood of a would-be lover, of the woman she loved, of the Dragonborn and who knew what else besides.

Serana holds herself very still, for the briefest flash of a moment, just before she bites. Not to savor the moment of it, but to remember that she must be careful, to remind herself that she _can_ be careful. The instinct in her drives her to bite fast and bite deep, to bite at the jugular, to allow the force of the blood rushing out to the beat of the heart do her work for her. Her instinct tells her to bite to _kill_ , to _drain_ , not merely to feed. Serana cannot, and will not.

When Serana bites down, it is indeed with the quickness that spares the pain, but not the depth. When she bites down at last, Eres stiffens in her arms, hissing at the pain of it, and Serana takes care to hold her still - more than one thrall at the castle had ripped their own throats out for struggling while a bite had been held.

It takes little more than a second. Serana had not been sure of that - she had never bothered with thralls herself, and had never cared to ask the others for more detail. She had known that it _would_ be pleasurable for Eres, at some point, but not when. She had not been sure of how long it would hurt. She had even feared, for a moment, that perhaps that was a myth of its own.

It takes no more than a second, hardly long enough for Eres to even vocalize the hurt of it - and then she relaxes, softening in Serana’s arms, sighing softly with relief as the pain ebbs away.

Serana at least has the presence of mind to notice that, before her thoughts close to anything but the taste of it on her tongue. She pulls Eres closer, flush against her, and the sound of a sudden, breathless gasp meets her ears. Her mind pulls very suddenly into two wildly different directions.

There is the taste of blood on her lips, on her tongue, the taste of which is somehow even more divine than that which she had had from her not so long ago, from the extractor. Fresh blood would always be superior to bottled, of course, but this was different - there is something _new_ in Eres’ blood, something new and maddening and so fulfilling that Serana thinks she might not need to feed for days on end for it—

And then there is the press of Eres against her, the racing of her pulse, the ever-deepening sound of her breath in her ear, laced with a tone she has not heard until now but would do anything to hear more of, to hear it _louder_ , to hear her name in it. There is the pressure of a hand, braced high at the top of her thigh and heat against her knee, and— _ah_ , Serana realizes, with some gravity. _That_ _’s_ why.

She shifts, and Eres shivers, and the decision is made for her.

Serana pulls away with not nearly as much difficulty as she had expected. Her gaze lingers on the bite not for want of more, but to be sure that she had not bitten too deeply. Only the little bead of a droplet of blood wells upon the skin in two little pinpricks where she’d bitten, the bite safely shallow enough that it will not need further attention.

Eres, on the other hand…

Serana looks at her, and Eres looks back, and her eyes have gone so dark they could have been mistaken for black. A touch of pink over her cheeks, the darkness in her eyes, the tension in her body - the hand, braced against Serana’s thigh as if to keep her knee from going any higher between her legs.

Serana kisses her, then, because she can’t help but to. Because Eres looks at her like she wants to be kissed. Because Eres looks at her like she wants something more. Because Eres looks at her like she wants the same thing Serana wants.

Serana will never tire of tasting her - not for her blood or her mouth or - or the many other places Serana would like to taste.

The tie that holds Eres’ night tunic closed is undone before she realizes that she’s grabbed it. There is skin beneath her hands, skin against her lips. There is a voice in her ears, a breathless whisper of her name as she tastes of her neck, of the dip of her collarbone, of the swell of a breast.

Serana does not know how she knows. Perhaps it is in her nature, something in the very depth of her that simply _knows -_ something that urges her onward, urges her forward, urges her until Eres’ hand is buried in her hair, and Serana’s hand is buried somewhere else.

It comes naturally to her in the way that caring for Eres, that loving Eres in every other way does: She hears. She listens. She _learns_.

She learns that there is a heat there, unlike any other. She learns that Eres wants her, too, as hands reach for her own tunic, as she is bared before her as she has been for no one else. She learns what the heat of Eres’ skin feels like against her own, so much so that her own skin warms to it, that even _she_ feels warm, that when they join, like this, she feels a little bit like she is alive.

She learns that a touch here makes her sigh, high and airy. She learns that her hand, pressing just there, curling just so, makes her moan, makes her hips lift to meet her, makes her ache. She learns that her mouth makes her gasp and shudder, makes her arch into her, makes her grasp for whatever is within reach - the headboard, the sheets, her hair.

She learns that Eres swears when she does something just right, when she touches her just so. That she calls her name when she wants more—and she learns, too, that the sound of her name on Eres’ lips like _that_ does things to her, too, things she had not expected.

They love differently. Both in this and everything else. Eres caves to her touch, and Serana discovers she is most easily undone when she presses deep inside her, when she curls her fingers as just the right moment. Serana finds that Eres’ mouth and hands _on_ her - not inside her - is more than enough on its own, and always quicker for her than the other way around.

Serana realizes, in those moments, that she could not be more different from those of _her kind_ if she tried. They take for their own pleasure, and damn who they hurt for it. Serana gives of herself freely, and her own satisfaction is an afterthought. Eres could refuse to touch her at all, could just take and take and never give in return, and Serana would still do it - because she simply wants to please her.

Because she loves her. Because they love each other. Because this is not at all what Serana had once thought it would be.

It is not an act of power, but an act of love. An act of vulnerability and connection and unguaredness and - there are moments, the first time, that Serana hesitates, that she fears, that there are things she pulls away from, because… Because she is still not _healed_ , just yet, but she is getting there.

And Eres loves her, and never pushes her, and there is caution and care in everything she does—in every touch, in every caress, in every brush of lips against her own, a question - _“are you alright? Is this okay?”_

Eres allows her to set the tone, the pace, to pull away when she needs to and come closer when she doesn’t.

It is in those moments, somehow, those brief slips of time, those flickers of a gaze meeting her own, that Serana feels most loved. That she understands that Eres’ love for her is as deep as her own love for Eres.

That there is something unspeakable about it, something unknowable and unfathomable about its depth, that there is something about the love between them that cannot sufficiently be said in words, but cations - not known in definitions, but in souls, in hears. In two people, connected by fate, or perhaps destiny, or perhaps just the providence of a lucky chance that had brought them together.

Serana had thought she would spend the rest of her eternal life earning that love, working to make so that she feels like she deserves it.

Now she knows she doesn’t have to. It’s unconditional. It’s love for the sake of love. It’s love not earned but freely given, no strings attached.

It’s love, the way it’s meant to be. The way _they_ _’re_ meant to be.

Serana and Eres—they’re Serana _and_ Eres. They are night and day, the moon and the sun, light and dark—they are both equal and opposite and yet so very similar in some ways, in the ways that matter. In the ways that allow them to understand each other, to know each other as no one else could.

It is in the moments after, as they lie together far later in the morning than they should, that Serana understands something she should have known a long time ago. It is then that Serana wonders how she could have ever thought she would need to spend her life yearning from afar. How she could have ever thought it would be possible that there could be a world in which they would _not_ love each other, that her love would not be reciprocated as it is.

It is in that moment, as Eres murmurs softly into her ear of the day ahead, that Serana knows it.

She and Eres had never been a question. It might have taken them a little bit longer to get there, but in truth - they had simply always been inevitable.

* * *

It is a strange thing, coming back from the dead.

She had once slept for a longer time than she had been in Sovngarde, but being unconscious while lying safely in her own bed, and disappearing with the intent of fighting Alduin in a realm of Aetherius were two very different things. There had been times, Eres imagined, that those who had witnessed her long sleeps had likely thought she may never wake again. Even so, there had been hope, then, and perhaps her physical presence had made it easier.

Being absent from the world entirely for nearly a full month is quite a different beast.

Smoothing out the fuss from accidentally leaving Mirabelle and Auria behind at the Throat of the World was one thing - and at least in that, she had been able to call quickly upon Kynareth’s favor to pass along a message - much to Kynareth’s unending amusement, of course. With the aid of the Greybeards, Mirabelle and Auria had managed their own transport back to Fellburg, as Eres herself still could not do such a thing on purpose, it seemed.

Eres had spent far too much of the next day in bed. Not quite lazing, but something close - though she would not for a second regret it.

By the time they had at last emerged from their room sometime around midday, it had been not unlike stepping out of Aetherius - leaving the comfort and sanctity of her own space and thrust into one which has not waited for her return.

Ironing out the problems that had arisen in her absence was another thing entirely, and though she would not regret the morning, could not ever - she could at least admit that perhaps they could have taken a little bit less time in the bath after. 

Eres had spent several of the next hours between both Gwyneth and Julia, who had been, according to Inigo, dreary fixtures within their rooms for weeks on end. That afternoon, Serana later told her, was the first time in weeks that either of them had worn anything aside from the mourning blacks of nobility.

Mirabelle, drained of magic and quite weak besides, took much of Auria’s attention, which was fine by Eres - but several looks from Auria had indicated that she would not be escaping _that_ particular interrogation for long. Valerica, on the other hand, had merely eyed her critically and said simply, _“Ah. You’ve returned,”_ a woman of few words to the last.

Isran, on the other hand…

“You’re _certain_ he’s not with the Dawnguard?” Eres stops, hands on her hips, and finds herself sorely missing Sovngarde for a moment. She had felt so much _stronger_ there. Now, she is reminded of just how far she still has to go before she will be back in peak condition. And clambering up the side of a bloody mountain is not doing her any favors.

Serana looks back at her, raises a brow. “Are you sure—”

“Do _not_ finish that sentence.” Break over. She’s walking. She’s a bloody _god_ , apparently. She should be able to handle a hill or two.

“Yes,” Serana says, when Eres has huffed up several more meters, “I followed him when he left. There’s some old hunter’s cabin up here.” If nothing else, Serana at least has the grace not to look amused by her struggle.

“ _Ugh_.” Eres can at least see it now, if nothing else. It’s hardly bigger than a shack. But she can see a bit of smoke coming from the chimney, and the firewood by the front door appears quite fresh. “I’m going to kill him for making me come up here.”

“No one made you. I offered to come get him alone. _You_ wanted to surprise him.”

Eres pushes down the heat that comes to her cheeks. When Serana had told her Isran had run off, she’d known - after everything Isran had told her in Coldharbour, and even their last conversation at Fellburg before she’d run off to find Alduin… She could only imagine why Isran would have chosen to do his grieving alone. Losing not one daughter, but _two_ , and so shortly after… It would have been heartless of her not to come herself, now that she is able.

Isran, however, is not a man easily surprised, even in mourning. Even so, Eres is surprised to see him step outside the little shack and wait for them just in front of it, arms crossed over his chest with a deep, familiar scowl painted on his features. The first thing Isran says to her when she approaches is not at all what Eres had expected.

“You’re an idiot.”

Eres blinks. Serana lets out a low chuckle.

“Yes,” Eres admits. “I have always been that.”

Isran glares at her a moment longer. “I thought you died, girl.”

“I thought I was going to.” She admits, honestly. She has no reason to lie. Not now. “But I’m here now, and—” she is reminded, suddenly, of her real father, and the piece of him she now likely carries inside her. “There’s so much I have to tell you.”

“Secrets of the afterlife, I imagine?” Isran remarks dryly. His scowl loosens, his expression relaxing somewhat, and yet, his eyes remain fixed upon her. “You know we don’t go to Sovngarde.”

“Neither do I,” Eres says. “I think?” She’s actually not sure, now. What _was_ the Bosmeri afterlife, anyhow? Would she have gone there, had she died, or remained in Sovngarde?

“She said,” Serana says, “there’s something she has to tell everyone. About what happened there.”

That still makes Eres nervous. But Auria and Mirabelle _had_ seen her up there on the mountain, and Kynareth had not said she couldn’t tell anyone. She’s had enough of lying and hiding things. All of them deserve to know _something_ of what had happened, and, at least… And in the case of Isran, she wants to him especially to know.

“I met my dad there.” The words tumble out of her, before she means to say them. Isran’s brows raise high on his forehead. Even Serana looks at her, surprised - she had not told Serana yet, either, Sovngarde having been the furthest thing from her mind when last they had been alone. But this—this is something she wants to remain between the three of them. Serana can know, of course. But this is meant for Isran’s ears, and they are both private people.

“I wasn’t close to him.” Isran merely nods. He had likely guessed. He was an observant, insightful man, if nothing else. “I want to go to Valenwood.”

That hadn’t been quite what she meant to say, and Isran just looks a bit like he’s not sure how those two topics are related.

“Serana is coming,” she tells him, rushing through the words so that she has no time to second guess them. “And Auria will go, because she’s my mother. I want you to come, too, because—” Isran’s brow furrows, and Eres swallows. “Because you’re the closest thing I have to a father, now, and—”

Isran hugs her so fiercely then that the words are knocked right out of her. He squeezes her tight, for just a moment, before he releases her.

“Of course I’ll come.” He says simply, with no fuss at all.

“What about the Dawnguard?”

Isran takes a breath, and lets it all out at once. “My heart hasn’t been in it since Coldharbour,” he says quietly. “Keep getting pulled in two directions, and one’s a hell of a lot stronger.” He looks at her, and she knows what he means. He doesn’t have to say it aloud.

If it’s between her and the Dawnguard, he would choose her.

“When do we leave?”

“Well,” Eres glances at Serana, who shrugs carelessly. “Whenever. I still need to get everyone together, and Mirabelle has some things she needs to handle with the College, but…”

“She’s coming along?”

“I’m not sure,” Eres admits. “She’s dedicated to the College, but…”

“Auria,” Isran says, nodding. “She may choose her this time, I suppose.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “This time?”

“I imagine that’s how it went before, isn’t it?” Isran asks, shrugging. “They knew each other, long before you were involved. Mirabelle helped Auria get back to Valenwood, but she remained at the College. I assume that was a deliberate choice.”

“Maybe.” Eres isn’t actually sure. Would Valenwood have welcomed Mirabelle, back then? Had Mirabelle even loved her mother, then? Had they been involved so long ago, or had they simply been two ships passing in a storm? “Whatever the case, there are things I still need to handle back at Fellburg first. And I should at least inform the Jarl that Alduin’s been taken care of, at some point.”

“Might be a good idea.”

Eres rocks back on her heels, then, thinking about it. Aside from informing the Jarl - which, technically, she could do by letter - and telling everyone what had happened in Sovngarde with Kynareth… She has nothing else to do. No pressing issues. No world ending apocalypses. No doomsday prophecies.

Just a trip to her motherland on the horizon, and an eternity with Serana to look forward to.

* * *

“Now that we are _all_ present,” Auria says pointedly, sending Eres a dark look as she takes her own seat.

Eres scowls at her. “I _said_ I was sorry.” She had. Several times, in fact. “It was an accident.”

“Which you have yet to explain, as well,” Mirabelle points out. Isran had remained rather close to Fellburg, thankfully, and though Mirabelle has had a night’s rest since the trip to High Hrothgar, she still does not look particularly well. Eres knows it will take time to recover what magicka she had expended, and that was not counting what other injuries she might have had. “How _did_ you come to teleport _accidentally_? That is not simply something one does.”

“That’s—why we’re here, actually.” Eres wrings her hands anxiously. She’s not sure whether to stand or sit. She’s not sure where to even start. “Something happened in Sovngarde.”

“So we assumed.” Valerica drawls. “That was, after all, the very point of you going, was it not?”

Serana rolls her eyes. “Could you at least pretend to listen, for once?”

Valerica leans back in her seat, expression as haughty and indifferent as ever.

Eres looks at them all, and for a moment, she loses her train of thought entirely. When had her circle expanded? It seemed as though it could have been mere months ago that Yosef and Johanna and their kids were the only people she could claim any real attachment to. Yosef and Johanna, who now sit at a table with so many others around it that chairs had needed to be pulled from other rooms, that Julia now bounces Neil upon a leg, listening attentively, as all others have been taken.

There is Serana, of course. And Isran, as well. Mirabelle and Auria, who could almost be considered a package deal as much as she and Serana might be. There is Valerica, too, technically, though she is not sure she could claim to have any special attachment to her other than by association. There is Gwyneth, too, so much more at ease here in Fellburg than she had been at the Temple. Inigo, who has turned his seat backwards, whose tail lashes lazily behind him as he listens, a permanent, easy grin upon his lips.

Eres could think of others, too, who could not be here - Delphine and Esbern, likely back at Skyhaven now, attempting to rebuild what is left of the Blades. Claude, who could not have escaped his service to the Empire if he’d tried, now back in her life after nearly a decade of believing that he had died at war. Arngeir, who had mentored her. Paarthurnax and Durnehviir and even Odahviing, who had seemingly known her fate, and never told her - and who certainly could not fit within a dining room.

Just two years ago, Eres had held herself apart from the people she had met. She had kept herself closed, and cared only for the very few she could bring herself to trust.

Two years ago, she had not met Serana. She had not known love.

Eres, standing before them, feels suddenly unreasonably emotional. Just two years, and so much had changed…

A hand presses gently at the small of her back, rubbing gently. It calms her, grounds her, brings her back to the present. She had missed that, in Sovngarde.

She had missed _her,_ more than anything else.

She sends Serana a quick, grateful smile. Serana nods, almost imperceptibly. She says not a word - she doesn’t need to.

Eres is not sure she is allowed to tell them what she has seen, what she will be. But she can at least tell them _something_ , and they deserve to know.

“In Sovngarde, Kynareth called me her Chosen.” That is technically not a lie. It is simply not the entire truth. She feels a slight tickle at the back of her mind, a brush of a draft of wind against her skin that should not have been present in a closed room with no open windows. She gets the sense that Kynareth approves of this watered-down version of events. “She gifted me with something. Powerful magic. Magic I can’t yet control all that well, as it is still new to me.”

Mirabelle’s brows furrow.

“I hope you’ll all be patient with me, should you anything unusual happen.” That is putting it lightly, but perhaps any more incidents will be a bit more subtle than disappearing from the top of a mountain at will. “More importantly, Alduin is dead, and now that I have bested him, the dragons have - bent the knee to me, in a manner of speaking.” She hates to think of it that way, but it is rather appropriate.

“Dragons follow whichever of them is strongest. Currently, that is me - so they will listen to me. I have instructed many of them to spread out, far across Skyrim, to spread their hunting grounds, and that they shall not attack humans or their villages. There are plenty of mammoths and other large predators they can eat if they choose. They shouldn’t be a bother anymore.”

Yosef, under his breath, mutters, “I hope they don’t wipe out anybody’s livestock.”

“They know the difference. They’re intelligent.” Eres tells him. “More to that end, in terms of Fellburg…”

She looks to Serana. Serana, expression tight, hands her a single scroll of parchment. Its seal has not been broken.

“Fellburg’s landclaim is approximately twenty-six square miles, situated firmly on the borders between the Holds of Falkreath, the Reach, and Whiterun. Officially, it is considered Falkreath’s, and so answers to Jarl Siddgeir, until such time as he is unseated or replaced, or I can renegotiate Fellburg’s attributed lands.”

Eres notes the confusion on their faces, and does not need to wonder at why. If Serana had never opened the will she had written, they would not have known of her plans for it. They will know, now.

“I plan to leave for Valenwood.” Auria’s brows rise high, her mouth opening wordlessly. She would not be the last person to make such an expression, Eres is sure.

“I don’t know how long we will be gone. Serana, myself, Auria—I assume,” Auria nods numbly, “and Isran. Mirabelle, as well, if she wishes to come.” Mirabelle does not answer just then, but Eres had not expected her to. With her responsibilities at the College, she would need time to come to such a decision.

“It could be months. It could be longer.” Eres admits. She hates the dismay she sees on the faces of those she will leave behind. “As such…”

Eres uses the tip of a nail to break the wax seal on the will, and pulls it open. She sets it on the table, and, with not an ounce of hesitation, pushes it until it slides in front of Johanna.

Johanna and Yosef look up at her, eyes wide.

“In the event of my death,” Eres says softly, gently, because it is still a sensitive subject, “I had meant for Fellburg to be passed to you. You have done more for Fellburg than I have, since I joined the Vigilants all that time ago. Fellburg was mine only in name. I will be writing to both Jarl Siddgeir and Jarl Balgruuf to have the deed officially signed over to you before I leave. Fellburg will be yours to do with as you see fit.”

“Eres, you can’t just—” Yosef jumps from his seat. Johanna presses a hand to her mouth, eyes glistening. “We’re not—we’re not _nobles,_ we can’t—”

“Don’t you know?” Eres asks, raising a brow at him. “You’re a landowner now, Yosef. Or you will be, once it is approved. Perhaps not noble in blood, but at least in ownership. I trust you will manage it well.”

“Eres, this is _your_ home.”

“And it still will be, when I return,” Eres says gently. “But, you know as well as I do that I never stay in one place for long. My absence from Fellburg only serves to hold it back. With the estate in your hands, I can be sure that my absence will not leave you stranded as things pile up you are not equipped to handle. Lady Miren, as well, as I understand it, has some experience with managing a noble home.”

Miren is not present just now, this being more of a personal meeting, but Eres does plan to inform the staff as well of the change, later. It is not as if any of them would argue, Eres is sure.

“You will have assistance in learning to manage the estate not as liaison or steward, but as a Lord and Lady.” Eres winks at young Julia, who gapes at her. “And, of course, you will have my support, whenever it is needed. In addition, Odahviing will likely make his roost nearby, offering further protection from the Forsworn or bandits who might try their hand.”

“ _Dragon_?” Yosef squeaks, falling heavily back into his chair. “Here?”

“Likely somewhere high in the mountains. I’ll tell him to keep a safe distance from the village, to keep from spooking anyone. You’ll be the safest village in all of Skyrim, Yosef.”

Yosef merely holds his head in his hands, looking thoroughly overwhelmed.

Valerica, a few seats away, rolls her eyes. “You have an adequate laboratory here,” she says after a moment. “In exchange for continued use of it, I will provide my expertise as well. I imagine you will need someone well-versed in the politics of nobility, if you mean to renegotiate the bounds of your lands with either of the Jarls.”

Eres blinks. That, she had not anticipated. “Thank you, Valerica.” The woman waves a hand dismissively.

“It has been too long since I have put this mind of mine to good use.”

Serana gives the woman a dry look. “Try not to threaten anyone.”

Valerica meets her with a cool smile. “ _Me_? Surely not.”

Eres eyes her warily. She may have to keep an ear out while she’s in Valenwood for any unusual happenings in the area, if Valerica is going to be terrorizing the Jarls from now on. Hopefully, Yosef and Johanna will manage to keep in close enough contact that she will know if she needs to return a bit earlier than planned.

“Inigo,” Eres turns to him. “Will you be returning to Skyhaven?”

“Hmmm…” Inigo considers it for a moment. “Valenwood is not too welcoming to my kind, I think,” he says simply. “If you ever wish to visit Elswyr, however…”

Eres had expected as much. She had not thought Inigo would be as dedicated to the Blades as he seemed to be, but perhaps what he had needed all along was a sense of purpose. She will miss him when she leaves, she knows, but - she had wanted to spend her time in Valenwood with Serana, anyhow. She would only have felt rude if she did not at least ask.

“Good luck with the Blades, Inigo. I’m sure you’ll be a good teacher to whichever fools Delphine and Esbern manage to recruit.”

At that, Inigo snickers. Eres gets the feeling he plans to teach any recruits they do get more than just what he’s learned from the Blades.

“Yosef,” she says, before dismissing them all, “meet with me tomorrow. You and I will ride up to Whiterun to formalize the transfer.”

Yosef looks vaguely ill, but Johanna nods for him, tugging him alongside her as she and the others make their departures. Eres might have worried for Yosef, were it not for Johanna. The man had a good business sense, if he could be a little more confident. Johanna, however, was far more clever than most people assumed. They would be a good balance for the running of a small fief such as Fellburg.

“Eres.” Mirabelle, along with Auria, have not moved at all. “A moment, if you please. In private.”

Isran lingers only a moment longer than the others as they file out of the room. In short order, only she, Serana, Auria, and Mirabelle remain.

“I have been meaning to ask you of your experiences in Sovngarde.” Mirabelle says, her voice carefully level. “You say Kynareth gifted you with some kind of power?”

“Something like that, yes.” That is as much as Eres thinks they would believe, anyhow, even if she did not think it was meant to be somewhat of a secret. She may have to see if there is some way to contact Kynareth herself, to see what exactly she is allowed to say, and what she is not.

“I saw you.” Mirabelle holds her gaze meaningfully. “With a woman. Was that her? Kynareth?”

Eres’ brow furrows. She remembers little of the moments directly following her—success, in passing the final test. She doesn’t remember confronting Alduin at all, for example, aside from what Kynareth had told her. But she does remember for a moment, the thought, the feeling that she had seen Mirabelle, that there had been something she was meant to do for her.

“It could have been,” Eres answers, honest in her uncertainty. “I don’t recall seeing you.”

“Auria seems to think you saved my life.” Mirabelle says. Her expression remains carefully neutral. “You have no memory of this?”

Eres thinks back. She can remember, not long before she had left for Skuldafn, the feeling of a wrongness in the direction of Winterhold. A feeling of a great magical power that perhaps was not meant to be there. At the time, she had discounted it for some sort of experiment, but perhaps… Perhaps, in the moments following her encounter with the Godhead, she had found Mirabelle instinctively, knowing something was wrong…

Eres tries to remember. She does. “I don’t, Mirabelle. I’m sorry - I’ve no idea what you saw. I suppose it’s possible you saw a glimpse of Sovngarde, if you were so close to death.”

Mirabelle’s expression tightens. “Perhaps,” she says, though she does not sound like she believes it. Even Auria looks at Eres as though she believes her to be lying.

“I really don’t remember.” Eres tells them, and wishes that she could. If she only knew what Mirabelle had seen, perhaps she could find some way to explain it that they’d accept. Without remembering it clearly, there’s little she can say at all. “I’m sorry.”

Mirabelle sighs. “No matter. What is done is done.”

“Will you be joining us in Valenwood?” Eres asks her, then, because that is easier. “I imagine the College must need repairs.”

Mirabelle looks at her with some suspicion. Whatever she is thinking, she doesn’t say it aloud. “Yes,” she admits. “There is much work to be done, and a new Archmage must be chosen.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t offer the position to you.” Serana says. “You were the Archmage’s right hand man, so to speak, weren’t you?”

“They did.” Mirabelle confirms. “Whether I shall take it, however…” She shakes her head. “Tolfdir may be a better option.”

Eres remembers Tolfdir. Vaguely. “Do you mean to retire from the College?”

“Perhaps not retire, no. A vacation, however…” Mirabelle manages a wry smile, then, sharing a glance with Auria. “Perhaps it’s time I see your homeland, after all this time.”

“Ah,” Auria sighs, somewhat wistfully. “I shall never get her away from the Archives, I expect.”

Eres, despite herself, snorts. When she glances at Serana, the woman favors her with a dry look in return - she knows exactly what Eres is thinking. Mirabelle won’t be the only one they might have to pry from whatever libraries there may be there.

“In the meantime,” Mirabelle says, “I will get in contact with Tolfdir. We had begun making arrangements to bring your man Gelebor to the College to begin our collaboration on the wayshrines you mentioned. Unfortunately, we had Ancano to deal with shortly after.”

“Do you know how long one of these wayshrines takes to build?”

“Evidently, not long at all,” Mirabelle replies, with some surprise in her voice. “Gelebor was… reluctant, at first. Your suggestion helped to smooth some ruffled feathers. He could not allow us to use the same shrines as he, but he is willing to share the fundamental cornerstones of building them. We should be able to build and test one within weeks of his arrival. It appears they are constructed primarily from magic, itself, and maintained along lay lines—”

That is already well above Eres’ magical paygrade. “I’m sure Tolfdir and the others can manage helping to build them while you’re away. And,” she says, with a look at Auria, “I think Auria will be glad to have you there.”

Auria eyes her suspiciously. “You seem … surprisingly well-adjusted, Eresael. Considering what you have been through as of late.”

At that, Eres has to laugh. “Because I’m _better_ , Auria.” Auria’s eyes narrow. Whether it is at her calling her by her name, or skepticism, Eres is not sure. “I’m not in danger of falling into a coma at any given moment anymore. I don’t have to worry about slipping away in my sleep and dying before I’ve even managed to live a real life. I have _no_ responsibilities, for the first time in years.”

As long as she doesn’t think too deeply about Romulus, that is, but her trip to Valenwood serves as a brief escape from that particular problem, as well. She likely won’t be able to avoid it forever, but with Odahviing standing guard over Fellburg, and Auria and herself _both_ in Valenwood—Romulus won’t be a problem, for the moment.

For the first time in perhaps her entire life, Eres has nothing at all on her plate. Once she’s signed over the deed to Yosef and Johanna and reported her success to the Jarl about Alduin, she has nothing but freedom.

It is a strange feeling, but certainly not an unwelcome one. She’s never felt so unburdened in her life.

She’s saved the world. Again. She deserves to have a good mood now and then. She certainly deserves a vacation.

Besides—she had had a very, _very_ good morning. Not that they need to know.

“I’m _well, Maman_ ,” she says, more gently. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Auria tsks. “That means I have everything to worry about. You,” she says, pointing at her with a stern finger, “find a way to make trouble, wherever you go.”

“I don’t plan on making any trouble in Valenwood.”

“I certainly hope not,” Auria mutters darkly. “Come, Mira. Let us get you back to bed. I imagine you’ll have a long day tomorrow, making arrangements.”

Mirabelle, sighing, bids she and Serana goodnight - and they are alone.

At last.

It’s been strange, since she returned. Sometimes, it is because Serana still looks at her like she expects that she will disappear if she blinks at the wrong moment.

Mostly, it has been because, despite that very morning—they had not actually spoken of how she had left. In fact, Serana herself has not brought it up, has not seemed upset with her at all. Not even asked for a reason. Not asked much of anything, really, aside from what Eres would like to do.

To be fair, she had been rather distracted that morning, and they had had little time alone since. But as it nears the end of the night, and they are at last alone again, Eres knows she can’t allow it to be forgotten so easily. Even if Serana does not want to ever address it aloud, it’s not something Eres herself can ignore.

She stews in silence on their way back to her rooms, mulling it over in her head. This is something they need to talk about. And there are things Eres wants to tell her that she could tell no one else.

Eres waits until they have laid down again to say it, though there is a part of her that hates to bring it up, knowing it will upset her. She could have a very different kind of night, if she avoided it. But that wouldn’t be fair to her, and Eres would not continue to lie by omission.

“We need to talk,” Eres says, turning to look at her. Serana does not look especially surprised by the ambush - she had likely expected it, in some degree. “About what happened.”

By the furrow in Serana’s brow, it’s plain that she knows exactly what she is referring to. “Eres, I told you—”

“I know what you told me.” Serana had said she didn’t care. Eres knows that’s a lie. Or at least, it’s not the whole truth. It can’t be. “I noticed you never opened the will.” Serana’s expression closes. As Eres had expected it would. “I assume that means you never opened the letter, either.”

“I didn’t need to.” Serana says, aiming for almost casual and not quite reaching it. “I knew you would come back to me. I believed in you.”

“I hurt you.” Eres says plainly. “I need you to know why I left the way I did. Why I didn’t say goodbye.”

Serana’s gaze drops, then, fixing instead on her own hand, absently playing with the ends of a lock of Eres’ hair. Eres allows it, because she needs it.

“It called to me,” she tells her, and hates how stupid it sounds. “In the same way it did in Coldharbour. I couldn’t ignore it. I had to go. And…” Eres takes a breath. “If you had asked me to stay, I—”

If Eres is honest, it is more of the second reason. It is almost entirely the second reason, in fact, though the Godhead’s insistence on calling her had been part of it as well. But there is no denying the intensity of her love for Serana, and how terrifying that could be, in its own way.

“I would have let the world burn for one more day with you,” Eres whispers, almost afraid to say it aloud. Serana’s eyes lift to meet her own, then, and this, Eres knows she will hear. “If you’d asked me to stay, I would have never left. I would have let everyone die if it meant I could spent the last of my days with you. I’d have—”

“Eres,” Serana murmurs, and there is the soft warmth of sympathy in her eyes, then, of understanding that Eres doesn’t know if she’ll ever feel she deserves.

“You make me want to be selfish, Serana. And me being selfish, with who I am…” Or rather, was—her being Dragonborn is hardly relevant anymore, now, “means _millions_ of people die. How could I have justified letting all those people die for one more night with you?”

She’d have felt guilty for that, in whatever afterlife she ended up in. She could only imagine how something like the Mists of Sovngarde might have tormented her with the souls of every single person she’d damned to die at Alduin’s behest, if she’d been selfish.

“I knew you’d try to stop me. And I wouldn’t have been able to say no, again,” she admits. “It killed me to leave you the way I did. But it was the only way I could have ever left you. It was the only way I could have ever made myself do it.”

“If you were anyone else,” Serana murmurs, “I’d find that hard to believe. But I know you, Eres. I know that you put everyone else first. It…” She swallows, and for a brief moment, she averts her gaze, unable to look at her. Eres hates that she had made her feel that way, even for a moment. “It certainly isn’t going to be one of my fondest memories. But I understand why you did it. I hate that you did it,” she admits. “But, the reason you did it is - that’s who you _are_ , Eres. That’s who I fell in love with. I knew what I was getting into.”

“And how much you’ve gotten into, at that,” Eres jokes, smiling wryly at her.

“I forgive you.”

“I didn’t ask you for forgiveness,” Eres says, frowning.

“You’re getting it, anyways.” Serana says, with not an ounce of uncertainty in her voice. “I forgive you, Eres. The hard part is going to be you forgiving yourself.”

Well, _she_ _’s_ one to talk, out of all people. Eres doesn’t point it out.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Is this about your father?” Eres blinks at her. “You said you met him there, when we saw Isran.”

“Oh. No,” Eres shakes her head. “That’s—I can tell you about that later. This is about something else. It’s…”

How could she even begin to tell her what had happened there? How could she just casually tell her, hey, by the way, when I die, I’m going to be a god, now? What reason would Serana even have to believe her? She could give her the necklace, but - even that isn’t proof enough on its own, and it’s not as though Eres could prove it in other ways. The teleporting had been an accident, and Kynareth had as much as told her she wouldn’t be able to do anything _godly_ on Nirn.

As far as what she is now, she’s little more than a mortal with an appointment after she dies. If she gets a handle on her magic and learns to control it, _maybe_ , but even then, there’d be only so much she could access.

Eres hates to keep anything from Serana, and she’d _meant_ to tell her, but… She can’t see that conversation going anywhere good. Maybe when she can prove it, she’d be able to tell her. Maybe once she’s grown into it a bit more, or maybe if Serana witnesses something undeniable that she ends up doing on accident…

“Eres?”

“I met Mara,” she says instead, because that is strange enough to have been the reason for the turn in conversation, without revealing the whole of it. Serana’s brows raise. “She gave me a gift to give to you.” Serana’s brows rise higher still.

“Really,” Serana says, and she doesn’t sound like she believes it.

“Really.” Eres says, and she lifts a hand to trace the edges of Serana’s choker, searching for a clasp. She’ll get rid of that thing if it’s the last thing she does. “A replacement for this.”

“Replacement?”

Eres finds the clasp, and unfastens it. The choker falls open, sliding languidly from Serana’s neck, and Eres does not give Serana the time to argue it. She grabs it, and flings it over her shoulder. It hits a far wall with a resounding _thunk_ of the heavy metal that had carved out the visage of Molag Bal himself.

“I hated that thing.” Eres brushes a finger across the newly revealed skin. She had meant to do this before, that morning - but she had been so caught up in the moment that she had forgotten, and Serana had just put it back on when she’d dressed for the day. “You don’t belong to him.”

“I don’t.” Serana confirms. She looks back at Eres, expression more open and content than Eres had expected - but also just a little bit curious, just a little bit suspicious. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I… don’t know if I’m allowed to,” Eres admits. “They didn’t say I couldn’t, but—it just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing people are supposed to know.”

“I’m not ‘people’,” Serana says. “I saw something, on the mountain. And again, earlier…” Eres’ brows jump, surprised - what exactly had she seen? “There’s something about this ‘power’ Kynareth gave you, isn’t there? There’s more to it than that.”

Eres chews on the inside of her lip. Kynareth had not said she couldn’t tell, technically… But every time she even so much as _thinks_ of the Godhead, there’s such a deeply uncomfortable feeling at the back of her mind that she knows it’s not something she’s meant to share. How much could she tell Serana at all?

“There is,” she admits quietly. But would Serana even believe her if she told her? “But I can’t say more than that, for now.” For now. Until she has some way to reach Kynareth, to be certain of the _rules of godly engagement_ \- or whatever the hell she had called it. “But soon. I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”

Serana’s eyes narrow. “Is this going to get you hurt? Is this _another_ world ending thing?”

“No,” Eres almost laughs, but—given what she’s been through in just the past two years, she supposes that’s actually a fair question. “You could consider it a reward, I suppose. For stopping the world-ending thing.” Maybe. She’s still not quite sure why they’d chosen her, aside from what Kynareth had said of Coldharbour… Perhaps she’d merely gotten lucky, for being the one Shor had decided to help.

“Hmm…” Serana eyes her skeptically a moment longer. “We _are_ going to Valenwood for an actual vacation, aren’t we? Is there something there you haven’t told me about?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Eres says, and hopes to all the gods that there isn’t. She just wants to _relax_ , for once. “We said we’d make more stories together, you know. Travel the world, and all. Not all of those stories have to be so dramatic.”

“I certainly hope not,” Serana drawls, and leans down to kiss her shortly. “I’ve had about enough of watching you throw yourself into danger.”

Eres huffs, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like I do it on purpose.”

“Oh, I’m aware. You just can’t help yourself.”

“You shouldn’t complain. It’s the whole reason I met you in the first place.” If Eres hadn’t had the habit of walking headfirst into danger, she’d have never kept on with the Vigilants after Altano, certainly. Then she’d have never had reason to join the Dawnguard, and she’d have never found Serana at Dimhollow.

“I like to think we would have found each other,” Serana says, with a quirk of her brow. “If nothing else, the smell of your blood…”

“Oh, so it’s my blood you want?”

Serana chuckles, and the hand on Eres’ waist drifts just a little too low to be innocent.

“Among other things,” Serana says, leaning down to kiss her.

Eres has no complaints about that.

* * *

“South?” Eres tilts her head, peering curiously at the map in her hands. The black gelding beneath her shifts impatiently. “Shouldn’t we be riding southwesterly?”

On her map, at least, Falinesti is marked towards the western coast of Valenwood. If they travel southwest straddling the border between the Empire and Hammerfell, they could likely catch ferry in Anvil to take them across to Falinesti. Going for the border directly south of Falkreath and cutting through the mountain pass would be the quickest route, by her estimate. Rather than turning east for Chorrol as she and Inigo had, they could simply follow the roads for Kvatch, and turn southwest from there towards the coastal city of Anvil.

“At this time of year?” Her mother, astride her own horse, does not so much as glance towards the map Eres carries. “If we were lucky, we might catch the tail end of the march - a place you do not wish to be, _mikros_. We ride south and cross at Skingrad. We can make our way to the capital from there - if Falinesti has not already joined with it by the time we arrive, I will be surprised.”

Eres’ expression wrinkles. She has heard of the migrating city of Falinesti, and has been fascinated by it since childhood - but that did not mean she understood anything about it. The idea of a city simply picking itself up and traveling several hundred miles twice a year still too difficult a concept to wrap her head around.

“I’ve always wondered how that works,” Serana muses from beside her. She seems not at all bothered by the length of their trip, nor by the delay in it as they try to decide upon a route. Eres' eyes drop to her neck, as they often do, now. Every so often, she remembers that it is Mara's choker that rests there, now, not Molag Bal's. She will never tire for seeing it. “If it’s the trees moving - how don’t they destroy everything in their path when they migrate?”

“There is a path they take every year.” Auria answers, absently. “Our people know not to build near it.”

Eres tries to imagine where Falinesti might be on the map she has, but she can’t imagine there is enough space for _two_ large cities within the surroundings of the capital of Elden Root. How _did_ it work? Any map of Valenwood she could procure in the Empire would be next to useless unless they were imported from the Dominion, and even that would not be entirely accurate, if she has heard correctly.

The Dominion’s hold on Valenwood, as far as Eres knew, was not something of a certainty. The Dominion had encroached upon the territory of Valenwood just as they had anywhere else in Tamriel, braver against the dangers of Valenwood’s unusual, unknowable geography than the Empire. So far as Eres knows, their attempts to control Valenwood had not yet been successful, though not without trying. Whatever foothold the Dominion held within Valenwood now was still weak enough that the Empire did not risk pushing their own forces through it.

If nothing else, it means that whatever souls they may meet there will likely know nothing of who Eres is - or what enemies she has made. No Romulus to make her wary of the Empire - and no Thalmor to hunt her down for infiltrating the Embassy. Eres will just have to keep herself from getting involved in local matters.

She means to go there for a vacation, a return to her roots, to learn the culture she had been kept from as a child - and nothing more.

“How long will it take?”

“Several weeks, I imagine.” Auria answers. “From here to Kvatch. Perhaps we may find a mage willing to allow us to use their Circle to gain passage to Skingrad, but I know not of any who would be so generous. We should anticipate that we must take the journey as any other does.” Auria’s expression shifts then, turning uncertain. “I am not certain of what trouble we can expect at the border.”

“Is it closed?” Eres asks, frowning. “I’m surprised you didn’t have a Circle set up for your return.”

“I did not plan on returning,” Auria says simply. Her expression is unreadable. “The borders were not so strict twenty years ago as they are now, and even then, I needed Mirabelle’s aid in returning.”

“Why _did_ you need Mirabelle’s help at all?” Serana asks then, brows meeting suddenly. “You were a citizen of Valenwood. Why would they turn you away at the border, of all people?”

Eres straightens in her seat, turning to look at Auria herself. How had she never wondered that? Why _would_ Auria have had any trouble reentering Valenwood?

“Did they keep you out because you married a man in the Empire?” She wonders, but even that does not quite sound right. Auria had told her that the plan the night she had vanished was that she would be extracted by others from Valenwood, and returned home. If that were the case, why would she be turned away at the border at all? Would they not have been expecting her?

Auria’s expression closes. “There are things you do not yet understand, Eresael. You will see when we reach the border.”

“What does that mean?” Eres frowns at her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Auria’s horse trots ahead of her, leaving the question unanswered.

Eres frowns after her. “Is it just me, or is my mother hiding something?”

“She’s definitely hiding something.” Serana says simply. “There’s some other reason Auria couldn’t return on her own.”

Not for the first time, Eres wishes that Mirabelle had not chosen to join them later - if she were here, instead of the College, she might have been able to tell them more about why Auria had not been able to return on her own. Mirabelle, at least, could tell them when Auria would not.

“I don’t suppose you packed a book on Valenwood’s border policies.”

“Afraid not.” Eres sighs, and Serana reaches to touch her hand. “Whatever it is, I’m sure we can handle it. We’ll get through it like we get through everything else.”

Eres squeezes that hand back, briefly, then releases it so they can follow after her mother before she’s gained too much ground ahead of them.

“I just don’t like feeling that there’s something I should know _before_ we get there. This _is_ supposed to be a vacation, not just… more trouble.” The thought that whatever Auria might be hiding might ruin their plans for travel and relaxation isn’t one that Eres wants to entertain, but she must consider it.

“We could always leave her behind.”

“ _Serana_ ,” she turns to scold her, to find Serana smirking back at her. “I’m not leaving her behind.”

“Then it’s something we have to deal with.” Serana shrugs, carelessly. “So what if it takes us a little longer to get there? If you haven’t noticed, I’m in it for the long run. We have all the time in the world to experience Valenwood. If it gets off to a bit of a rough start at the border, then we’ll deal with it.” She smiles then, gently, lovingly. “We’ll just take a few extra weeks to enjoy ourselves to make up for it.”

Eres takes a breath, slow and measured. She allows herself to relax, to let go, to _listen_.

Serana’s right. Even if they do have a bit of trouble on the horizon, it wouldn’t be for forever. They have the rest of eternity to enjoy themselves. There’s no time limit, anymore.

Eres just has to keep reminding herself of that. She has all the time in the world, now. She’ll make the best of it, one way or another.

Eres remembers herself as a child who dreamed. As a child clamoring eagerly into bed at night, because it meant that Niu would come to tell her stories of a place that had been made for her. A place where her mother lived, somewhere, maybe, and where Eres could be free of him.

Niu, who would sit with her, who would murmur into her ears the stories of homes carved into the trunks of trees taller than the tallest buildings in the city, of bridges flung high across canopies swaying in the wind, of men and women and children alike who could hear the voices of the trees, of the world around them, of a world in which _mothers_ ruled, not fathers, where Eres could be uplifted, and not admonished.

As a child, Eres had lulled herself to sleep dreaming of Valenwood. As she’d grown older, it had become harder to call those images into her mind, to believe that there could be a place in this world at all similar to the daydreams she had once had. Dreaming of Valenwood had seemed as far-fetched as dreaming of Sovngarde - it was simply a place that could not _be_ , not as she had thought of it.

And perhaps, as she’d grown, the thought of Valenwood had become bittersweet. It was where her absent mother had been from. It was where even Niu had gone, the tutor she’d looked at more closely to a surrogate, to a mother-like figure, to a sister much older than herself. Now that she remembers it, now that she thinks of it - Niu had not been that old, at all. Eres had been - nine? Ten? When her father had gotten rid of her.

Niu had been just - what was it again? Nineteen? Twenty? She had been quite young, Eres remembered that much. Niu would be in her thirties now, probably. Not that much older than herself.

What were the chances, that she might run into her again? Would Niu even remember her, if she did? Would _she_ remember Niu, a woman she can barely call to mind even now, less so in images rather than feelings? Would Valenwood even be everything that Niu had made it out to be, or had she only given her younger self something magical to dream of that had never been real?

 _Not long, now_ , Eres thinks, for a very different reason than she has thought it before. Not to the end of her life, anymore.

Not long now, until the very beginning of the rest of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> annnnnnnnnnnd that's a wrap! thank you all for reading this long ass fic of borderline wish fulfillment ahahaha. pat yourselves on the back for actually bothering to read well over half a MILLION words of this holy shit. 
> 
> it will take some time to get started on act 8 - i'm kind of busy with college atm and starting a temp job in like a week, so i won't have as much time to write through september. unless i really somehow don't get swamped/exhausted, i would put a conservative estimate at act 8 not getting any real work started on it until around october, so don't be too surprised if it's a few weeks before anything comes out. doesn't mean it's not coming, just taking a bit longer. :P  
> stay tuned because i have been writing pretty much the entirety of this fic for the sake of getting to the next act. and we are FINALLY there god bless 
> 
> anyways i will be updating this with an author's note explaining some of the more nuanced concepts/lore things as chapter 29, so be aware that THIS chapter is actually the last one. if you get a notification for chapter 29 it will be an author's note, not a continuance of the story. i'm just putting it at the end so people can read it if they want to or skip it if they don't, especially if there are readers who don't follow me on tumblr or don't want to join the discord. 
> 
> thanks again for all your support and kudos and lovely comments, you really do keep me motivated to continue writing and i hope you all enjoyed reading this act as much as i enjoyed writing it. until the next one <3


	29. AUTHOR'S NOTE: A BREAKDOWN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not a real chapter! This is just an author's note explaining the Ascension arc as well as supporting lore for those who might be curious for it.

###  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:**

On the Shezarrine Theory, the Ascension arc, and all relevant lore and foreshadowing throughout the series: aka Things You May Have Missed.

There will be multiple sections throughout. Please use ctrl+F to find the section you would like to read if you don’t want to read the whole thing.

Section 1: The Shezarrine Theory will cover the theory which forms the basis for the Ascension arc.

Section 2: The Ascension arc & Foreshadowing will break down the Ascension arc by the many hints and bits of foreshadowing present throughout Acts 4-7.

Section 3: Relevant & Supporting Lore will outline the existing Elder Scrolls lore which supports the Ascension arc.

**SECTIONS:**

**The Shezarrine Theory**

**The Vigilant Mod Connections**

**The Ascension Arc & Foreshadowing **

**Act IV: Blood Matron**

**Act V: The Mantling of Shezarr**

**Act VI: Remnants**

**Act VII: Dreams & The Godhead**

**Relevant & Supporting Lore**

**The Six Walking Ways**

**Heart of Lorkhan/Divine Spark**

**On the Godhead**

* * *

###  **SECTION 1: THE SHEZARRINE THEORY**

If you aren’t deep into Elder Scrolls lore, you may have not known that there is a somewhat popular fan theory regarding the significance of the Last Dragonborn, which is that they are a Shezarrine. I will try to break it down as simply as possibly to not get too longwinded.

A Shezarrine, as outlined by the wiki, is _“An influential and sometimes god-like figure who is believed to be a **mortal incarnation of the Missing God, Lorkhan,** or one of his aspects.” _Shezarr, Shor, and Lorkhan are all essentially the same Missing God.

The **_Shezarrine Theory_** , in fandom, posits the idea that the Last Dragonborn is actually a Shezarrine. It is not a theory that is ever explicitly confirmed, however there is enough evidence within the game to support this as an idea.

To be noted, in terms of “Elder Scrolls canon”, we are assuming that all incidents within the game are taken as **canon** , whether those implications were necessarily intended by developers or not. There are some who argue that these supporting incidents within the game could have been oversights or otherwise accidental: in this theory, we are not considering the intention of the developers, but rather **what is presented in canon**. Essentially, we are removing the developer from the equation and looking at the game as its own entity, and thus all events represented in game are canon.

There are several interesting implications in-game of the Dragonborn’s possible identity as an aspect of Shezarr. Most notably, there are two incidents which have always struck me in particular.

> **Arngeir:** _Long has the Stormcrown languished, with no worthy brow to sit upon. By our breath, we bestow it now to you, in the name of Kyne, in the name of Shor, and in the name of Atmora of Old. **You are Ysmir now** , the Dragon of the North, hearken to it. _

The phrase, _“You are Ysmir now”_ is especially interesting – as Ysmir as a diety is the Nordic aspect of the Imperial God known as Talos. Note that Arngeir also says that, _“Long has the Stormcrown languished”_ , in reference to Talos Stormcrown. Talos, who was an Oversoul of Shezarr – and you, as the Last Dragonborn, are given his namesake after being recognized as Dragonborn. We could of course chalk this up to formality, but…

> **Old Hroldan:** _Hjalti, is that you? (…) Do you remember me now, Hjalti?_

Hjalti Earlybeard is the mortal who was also known as Tiber Septim… also known as Talos Stormcrown (it’s a bit deeper than this but we’re keeping it simple here). During the quest, **Ghost of Old Hroldan** , the ghost Hroldan recognizes you, the Last Dragonborn, **_as Tiber Septim_**. He thinks you actually _are_ Tiber Septim.

Then, at the very end of the main quest, when you reach Sovngarde, there is the conversation with Ysgramor and the three warriors who help you to defeat Alduin.

> **Ysgramor:** _Welcome, Dragonborn! Our door has stood empty since Alduin first set his soul-snare here. **By Shor’s command** we sheathed our blades and ventured the vale’s dark mist. But three **await your word** to loose their fury upon the perilous foe. _
> 
> **Gormlaith:** _At long last! Alduin’s doom is now ours to seal. **Just speak the word** , and with high hearts, we’ll hasten forth to smite the worm wherever he lurks! _

Isn’t it a bit odd that **Shor** had instructed them to stay in the hall, but they are more than willing to leave it on the command of the Last Dragonborn? That would make sense – _if_ the Dragonborn was an aspect of Shor.

Even more notably, in the Hall, the LDB can sit on Shor’s throne. It’s very easy to make the assumption that this was a mistake. However, in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the Hero of Kvatch can approach Sheogorath’s throne prior to mantling him … **_and cannot sit on it until he has become Sheogorath_**.

So, we have Arngeir giving you the namesake that was once attached to another Shezarrine (or Oversoul), a former comrade of Tiber Septim _believing_ you’re actually Tiber Septim (again, a Shezarrine), and the culmination of the main quest is… Ysgramor and several others saying, quite blatantly, that they had not left the Hall because Shor told them not to – but they will leave it _on your orders_. Also you can sit in his throne.

That is, for the most part, what forms the basis of the Shezarrine Theory. Is it _overwhelming_ evidence? Not necessarily. But there’s just enough that theory is at least plausible. And… it just so happens to tie in fairly well to the Vigilant mod. Let’s dive into that next…

* * *

###  **SECTION 1.A: THE VIGILANT MOD & SHEZARR **

I have said it in previous author’s notes during Act V, but there is actually quite a bit of the Vigilant mod that has been left out entirely or otherwise left to implications. However, there is one specific facet of the Vigilant mod that my interpretation of the mod’s storyline builds off of.

From the actual mod translator’s explanation of the mod, u/Aelarr on Reddit:

> _“This is where our Dragonborn comes in - most likely very capable and stupidly powerful, not to mention that dragon soul ... **and maybe even being a Shezarrine?** And Molag Bal grins. His plane of Oblivion - his very being - may be under attack, but here is his ticket out of trouble. **He may not be able to get Nirn ... but a plane of Aetherius will do just fine, right? And wouldn't it be just a delicious irony if that plane happened to be Stendarr's and the Dragonborn manipulated into getting it for him?**_
> 
> _And doesn't Altano seem familiar? Bad bard. You cannot escape, you know? Ever._
> 
> _And so our Dragonborn gets dragged through hell and back and continiously placed in front of ugly decisions. What are they in the dark? Will they follow Stendarr's mercy and justice? Will they exact their own dominance over the weak? Will they submit? Whatever they do, they will end up in Coldharbour, one way or another. And then they only need to fill the Stone and the gates to Aetherius will open. **Because only a mortal as power hungry as Molag Bal himself can fill the Stone. If that mortal happens to carry a spark of divine, whether it's of Akatosh or Lorkhan or even both, then that's even better.**_
> 
> **_But how do you fill the Stone no mortal soul can fill? Simple. Feed it an immortal soul._ **
> 
> _Do you understand now why Molag Bal does not fight our Dragonborn when they finally ascend his tower in the end? Why he almost begs them to stop?_
> 
> _It's all a trick._
> 
> _Because the Stone will only be filled when it contains the soul or essence of the Burning Stone himself._
> 
> _And how do you open a portal to Aetherius from Oblivion?_
> 
> **_Have a mortal with an Aedric/dragon soul (or another divine spark) activate it._ ** _”_

This is the explanation of the mod that _Vigilance_ takes after – that Molag Bal’s goal was to reach Aetherius by offering the Stone the soul of an immortal, especially one who may have **a divine spark.**

 **Note:** I did take liberties with the story to make it fit Eres herself. I still highly recommend playing the mod to experience it for yourself, as there is an _immense_ amount of things I left out for the sake of cohesiveness or brevity.

* * *

###  **SECTION 2: THE ASCENSION ARC & FORESHADOWING **

There is foreshadowing hidden within many of the chapters prior to the conclusion of Act 7. Continue reading to see all of the hints dropped throughout the Arc and their explanations.

**I. Act IV: Blood Matron**

**Lamae:** Lamae, throughout her appearances in both Act 4 and Act 5, recognizes Eres _as more than herself._ Part of this is her seeing Eres’ present self through her “stepping into” the memories of The Bard – but part of this is also recognizing Eres as _greater than herself._

> **Lamae:** _You free them. Bring his fortress down around him._

**References:** Coldharbour, and the souls Molag Bal has trapped there – the very same souls Eres will eventually redeem through the Dragon Breaks in Act V.

> **Lamae:** _Only a god can kill a god. … Arkay’s Blessings be upon you._

**References:** Eres’ eventual mantling of Shor… and perhaps more? Arkay, after all, began his life as a mortal who was later elevated to godhood by Mara.

**II. Act V: The Mantling of Shezarr**

Throughout Act V, during the Coldharbour part of the Vigilant mod, it is not necessarily indicated that the Dragonborn mantles Shezarr at all. I believe it is at least a common theory for those who have played it, but the plot explanation doesn’t mention mantling at all outside of the possibility that The Bard had mantled Molag Bal. That, I’m afraid, is mostly my own interpretation of Vigilant as Shezarr is mentioned several times throughout, in a manner that is reminiscent to the references throughout the main quest of the vanilla game.

For example, **Inquisitor Pepe** tells LDB, towards the end of the mod, that _he had **waited thousands of years for Shezarr to come** , and all that came out of the sarcophagi were **poor imitations**_ **.** He implies that he manipulated you into doing what he wanted in order to bring an end to the cycle of suffering within Coldharbour and set Greymarch in motion… But at the end, he also asks why enough isn’t enough, and that you don’t need to keep fighting. If he’d meant for all this to happen, why does he change his mind at the end?

My personal interpretation is that it’s at least plausible that the LDB _did_ mantle Shezarr within Coldharbour, and it allowed them to persevere against Molag Bal. Frankly, it makes more sense to me that way as opposed to the LDB just magically being powerful enough to do it on their own – especially in the case of Eres, **who had not yet stepped into her role as Dragonborn.**

At this point, Eres is still just a Vigilant, who, despite realizing she is Dragonborn, has done little to actually pursue the role. On her own power alone, she would not be strong enough to face down Molag Bal. Adding in the mantling interpretation was necessary in order to make her success against Molag Bal even remotely believable. She can’t do it as mortal, but with the help of a Missing God, perhaps…

####  **III. Act VI: Remnants**

Act VI, following Eres’ emergence from Coldharbour, begins the second half of the Ascension arc – or, more accurately, begins the actual buildup of the full arc in the background. This begins with the coma, as well as the disturbing dreams that Eres has while in her coma, which are not shown in Act VI. Much of this is not explained until Act VII, so fast forward to the **Dreams** section if you would like to focus on that instead.

In Act VI, the primary “hint” in terms of Eres’ ascension comes at the very end of the act, in the final chapter, **Consequence**.

> _The oddest thing happens, then, mid-sentence._
> 
> _Eres blinks, her brow furrowing. She turns her head, her gaze somewhat distant._
> 
> _“It’s Fellburg,” Eres says suddenly. She is already moving for the horses before Serana has a chance to respond._

In this scene in the courtyard at the Temple of Stendarr, Eres **senses the attack on Fellburg** from dozens of miles away. Please refer to the map of Skyrim here for the location of the Temple of Stendarr vs. Fellburg.

  
  


In terms of travel time, Fellburg is approximately 1-2 days travel from the Temple of Stendarr under normal circumstances. Also, there’s a whole ass mountain range in the way. Eres has no way of sensing or seeing this normally, and she’s not supposed to.

This is a hint in regard to the fact that Eres’ perception has **expanded beyond that of a normal mortal** , similar to that which she experienced in Coldharbour while she had mantled Shezarr.

####  **IV: Act VII: Dreams and the Godhead**

Remember how I mentioned Eres’ first coma in the Act VI section? This is where that comes in.

Throughout Act 6, and even much of Act 7 prior to the later chapters where hints are more blatant, Eres experiences a coma **twice** , and further, is implied to have **disturbed sleep** and **haunting, unsettling dreams**. This is a theme that is first visited in Act 6 after she wakes from the initial coma (when she is shown to not sleep well), and later reinforced in Act 7 as she continues to have poor sleep and falls into a coma a second time following her interaction with the **Time Wound.**

####  **On Dreams, and Their Meanings**

In terms of Dreams, there is only one dream Eres has that is ever shown in the fic, that of the chapter **High Tide** , shortly before Eres wakes from her coma. The dream itself has a much deeper meaning that many probably were able to notice at first. Let’s break it down piece by piece.

**The Setting: Flooded Imperial City, Eres’ Childhood**

The setting here, **the Imperial City** back in Eres’ childhood represents Eres’ past. Eres in the beginning of the dream does not yet recognize that she is dreaming, and so regresses to believing that she is actually still within the Imperial City as a child, on a normal day.

**Scene 1: Claude takes Eres home, and the door closes on him.**

**Scene:** Prior to the scene at the door, Claude is represented in the dream as his younger self. Upon arriving at the door, he ushers Eres inside as the water climbs higher. Eres resists at first, and Claude insists. In a moment, Eres sees Claude as his adult self before the door closes and locks her inside – where she subsequently forgets why it had seemed so out of character.

 **Explanation:** Claude, and the Imperial City outside of Eres’ home, represents Eres’ past. The door closes: Her past/Claude is no longer relevant for her future. He was there in her childhood to “guide” her into becoming herself (leading her to the door), but after that his job was done. The house is essentially her current self, while the city & Claude were her past.

**Scene 2: Her father’s death, Isran**

**Scene:** Eres stumbles upon her father’s body in a room that is actively flooding. For a moment she sees his actual death – but Isran calls out to her. He then informs her she has entered the “Wrong door”. Eres realizes she is dreaming.

**Explanation:** Isran showing up: Rather obvious, but represents that Eres’ actual dad was shitty, and couldn’t serve as a guide, and she would not have been receptive to him. She has repressed the memories of him, which is why Heinrich is already dead by the time she gets there. Isran has taken his place as father figure even if she doesn’t consciously remember the incident in Coldharbour (yet), so Isran guides her instead. 

**Bonus:** Eres’ current memory (as of this particular chapter) is that she found him dead either of alcohol poisoning or some other form of cardiac arrest. However, in actuality, as revealed in Act 7, Chapter 25: Absolution, Eres’ father was actually murdered. Eres repressed this memory and recreated it into something more “normal” so she could cope with it, similarly to how she as a child repressed her traumatic separation with Auria.

**Scene 3: The Flood Itself/Water**

**Scene:** Basically the entire dream, every mention of the water rising.

**Explanation:** The water itself is a representation of fear, specifically of the unknown and/or the future – there are truths that Eres has to face about her current situation (and her future) that she is afraid of, and the flooding water is a representation of that fear and uncertainty beginning to overwhelm her.

**Notable Fears/Stressors:** Fighting Alduin, losing Fellburg, losing Serana, losing her own life, the events surrounding her father’s death, her mother’s abandonment, her tendency to push stuff down and not face them, etc.

The water constantly rising is because she is constantly bottling things up without dealing with them. So the problems pile up and pile up until eventually she would be consumed by them (by drowning).

If she doesn’t face them, they consume her, and she drowns – dual meaning of both death in the dream/life and also Zero Summing in her eventual ascension.

Choosing to breathe the water in despite knowing the danger is her deciding to face it, and doubles as her asserting her own reality (and thus achieving godhood via apotheosis).

####  **The Godhead**

The Godhead is the entity which “Dreams” the entire universe – essentially the creator of the “Simulation Theory” of the Elder Scrolls universe. I believe in terms of Elder Scrolls lore, it is insinuated that everything is _actually_ a dream. In _Vigilance_ , I have shifted this lore slightly:

Instead of everything being a dream, in _Vigilance_ , essentially everything _began_ as a dream. The universe was conceived by the Godhead dreaming of it, but then developed beyond it as the entities he “dreamed” developed free will. Essentially, imagine if you had a game of the Sims, and your Sims suddenly developed their own personalities and free will and began acting freely of their own accord. Of course, in essence, they would still be Sims – but they are their own individuals now, as you no longer have direct control of them. They have in a manner grown beyond the need to be “dreamed” or simulated. Sort of like an AI developing a conscious.

**The Final Test**

In lore, the actual process of Ascension is quite different, however, it does involve confronting the truth that reality is a dream, and asserting your reality regardless – this is the manner in which Tiber Septim is said to have ascended.

In _Vigilance_ , I shifted this concept a bit and played with it. In this, the Godhead is more akin to an **examiner**. His intention is not to force someone into **Zero Sum** , or being destroyed, but rather to urge a mortal to confront/see the truth and persevere despite it. Eres has passed all tests – mantling Shezarr, going against Molag Bal, etc – up to now. Her experience with the Godhead is the final test of her strength of will. If she’s strong enough, she will ascend. If not… It will eventually kill her as she inevitably Zero Sums.

 **The scene:** Eres is confronted with the Godhead’s insistence that the entire world is a dream. The scene begins in a dark room. The Godhead takes the forms of those that Eres loves, and informs her that she could potentially live in paradise if she chose to remain within the Godhead’s chamber. When Eres expresses disbelief in this, the Godhead instead shows her that “he” can do anything – including taking her to different locations in the blink of an eye, such as the Throat of the World – where Paarthurnax can sense them, but not see them. Finally, the Godhead presents Eres with the image of the current world in Nirn – where Serana is mourning her alleged death, on her birthday, as the water engulfs Eres on the other side of “reality”.

 **Explanation:** Again, the water is a callback to the original dream Eres had. The shifting realities, locations, and appearances of the Godhead is meant purely to indicate to Eres that the world _is_ a dream, and anything can be true if she wants it to be – because none of it is real. The scene with Serana is, essentially, Eres viewing Serana from within the Godhead chamber, unable to interact with her from a sort of pocket-dimension in which Nirn exists outside of it.

 **Scene:** Eres presses her hands against the “panes” of reality. _“Reality is what I make of it.”_ The chapter ends, and shortly thereafter, picks up with Eres waking to Kynareth kneeling over her, having sealed her power after she successfully ascended. Kynareth informs Eres that Alduin has been dealt with – thanks to her.

 **Explanation:** Eres rejects the Godhead’s reality – that wherein she and everything she knows and loves is just a dream – and instead asserts her own reality. In essence, Eres sees the Godhead’s wager that reality is a dream, and raises it – if it’s a dream, then I’ll make it _my_ dream. Eres’ assertion of _“reality is what I make of it”_ – is Eres taking hold of that reality and beginning to **edit it** to suit her purposes. Her only two acts as a godlike figure reflect her intentions to **fix** reality to what she believes it should be:

  * Removing Alduin as a threat (banishing him from existence)
  * Saving Mirabelle (she had sensed Wrongness at Winterhold long before her confrontation with the Godhead)



####  **Kynareth, Kahkaankrein, “Chosen”**

Kynareth tells Eres that she had been Chosen for ascension as far back as Act V.

Remember that Stendarr abandons Eres at the end of Act IV after Eres accepts Molag Bal’s offer of help to escape Bruiant Mansion and ends up in Coldharbour, where the Horn of Stendarr rusts. It is at this point, when Eres mantles Shezarr in Coldharbour, that Kynareth takes notice of Eres and begins watching over her more closely.

Kynareth, as other Divines, could not reach Eres in Coldharbour. Note that Inquisitor Pepe tells Eres not to bother praying to the Divines, because _“The Alessian Order burned all the priests”_ , and that the Divines no longer have power in Coldharbour. Kynareth could not reach Eres _normally_ – but she could, through Kahkaankrein, an immortal dragon soul who had been trapped in Coldharbour by **_Jhunal the Owl._**

Remember also that Eres could have dropped the last barrier within Coldharbour and went straight to Malada to confront Molag Bal. Instead, she first went to the Inquisition Court to find and free Kahkaankrein. Whether her sensing of him is purely related to her being Dragonborn, or an urging from Shezarr, knowing what his wife Kynareth was planning, is up to the reader to decide.

Through absorbing Kahkaankrein’s soul, Kynareth was able to reach into Eres through that connection to push Shezarr’s influence back and allow Eres to reemerge in the “driver’s seat” of her own body, so to speak. If Eres had remained as deeply mantled as she had been, she would have, in essence, _become_ Shezarr, and therefore her mortal body (and likely her mortal self) would have been consumed as Shezarr took over. Kynareth’s actions here saved Eres’ life and allowed her to reassert her personhood outside of divine influence. At this point, however, Eres still has Shezarr directing her actions from the background.

Later, in Act 7, Kynareth again speaks to Eres through Esbern, warning Eres that she will have a choice to make that may come with consequences – that is, the choice of confronting the Godhead or avoiding it.

* * *

###  **SECTION IV: RELEVANT & SUPPORTING LORE **

**I. The Fifth Walking Path**

**The Fifth Walking Path** is one of the **Six Paths** of ascension outlined by Vivec in his 36 Lessons of Vivec. Note that this is alluded to in **Chapter 17: High Tide** of **Act 7** , by Serana:

> _Serana contemplates throwing the **36 Lessons of Vivec** out the window…_
> 
> _…But perhaps, if she looks at the **sixth** a bit closer…_

This is actually a dead giveaway, pointing to **Sermon Six** of the _36 Lessons of Vivec._ For help in deciphering this text, I referred to newwhirlingschool.com. In it, consider the following entries:

> _“There is an eon within itself that when unraveled becomes the first sentence of the world.” --_ The first sentence of the world, **I AM.**
> 
> _“ **Six are the formulas to heaven** by violence, one that you have learned by studying these words.” --_Reference to the Six Walking Paths of ascending to godhood.
> 
> _“Six are the Walking Ways, from enigma to enemy to teacher.” --_ As described by New Whirling School: “It certainly seems to match **Lorkhan’s character arc** , which is probably not a coincidence. In the Dawn Era, **Lorkhan was an enigma** while his motives were uncertain. After convention, **he was declared an enemy.** But over time he became perceived by many cultures **to be a teacher.**

In a manner this also reflects Eres’ development over the course of the fic thus far. She was an enigma in that she was unknown and unheard of. She was declared an enemy by Stendarr following her entry into Coldharbour. Then, following her Ascension… perhaps in a manner she will become a teacher of her own right?

> _“Six are the guardians of Veloth, three before and they are born again, and **they will test you until you have the tendencies of a hero**.” _
> 
> _“There is **a world that is sleeping** and you must guard against it.” _The interpretation in the site is different from my own – but in this, we (as in _Vigilance_ ) are referring to that of the Godhead’s dream of the universe.
> 
> _“For by the sword I mean the **dual nature**.” _In Eres’ case, that of both divinity and mortality.

**II. The Heart of Lorkhan, Divine Spark**

**The Heart of Lorkhan** is sometimes called his **Divine Spark** , and was an Aedric artifact hidden beneath the Red Mountain during the Dawn Era. The Heart of Lorkhan is also considered the Tower Stone of the Red Mountain, and is likely the Stone that is referenced several times throughout the Vigilant mod. In the case of _Vigilance’s_ canon, the **Stone** as referenced in Acts 4 & 5 refers to both the Fake Stone (held by Molag Bal) and what it imitated, the actual Stone (the Heart of Lorkhan). The Stone, the **fake Ada Bal** which Eres used to open the portal of Aetherius, was a poor imitation of the Heart of Lorkhan.

Following the creation of Nirn, Lorkhan’s heart was taken from him as a punishment for creating the mortal plane. It was cast down into the depths of Nirn, never meant to be found. However, it has been found several times in history.

Note that following Eres’ ascension from Shezarrine to God, her divine power is referred to as a “spark” and represented by a figure of indescribably bright light, as though one looks upon the sun itself:

> _**That spark grows** , and grows, until Eres must squint to look at it, and then - the dome shrinks, and the tiny representation of herself is not inside the dome, but outside of it, and rather than a shadow, **it is a figure of the brightest, white-hot light,** arms spread wide at one end of the dome as if to grab it in its hands to shape it for themselves._

This is also briefly seen by Serana at High Hrothgar:

> _Serana blinks, and for a moment, **the figure is too bright to look at,** brighter than even worst of sun reflecting from snow—but she blinks again, **and the sun-brightness is gone** , and there is only the dark hair and dark robes and a head turning towards her—_

It is also referenced in the epilogue, by Serana, that she is able to see glimpses of this power, which is strongest at the center of Eres’ chest – the location of the heart.

> _Even now, if Serana looks just closely enough, if she focuses in just the right way - she can see something glimmering beneath the surface of Eres’ skin. If she lays her hand just so against the soft skin **at the center of her chest,** she can even feel it **\- the ghost of a thrumming center of power** that had not been there before **. The light is strongest there** , when Serana just happens to glimpse it, **sun-bright against bronzed skin** , all too similar to that which she had seen on the mountain just before Eres had turned to face her._

**III. On The Godhead**

The Godhead is referenced in **Black Book: Waking Dreams.**

> _“The eyes, once bleached by falling stars of **utmost revelation** , **will forever see the faint insight drawn by the overwhelming question, as only the True Enquiry shapes the edge of thought.** The rest is vulgar fiction, attempts to impose order on the consensus mantlings of **an uncaring godhead**.” _

It is difficult to find lore on the Godhead – there is not a specific page on either wiki compiling the information available on it, but the general idea is this:

The Godhead is the entity who **dreams the entire TES universe** – all of the Elder Scrolls universe exists as this being’s dream. **CHIM** , which is one way of achieving godhood (and how Eres/Talos achieves it) is the process of understanding that you are the **Dreamer** , but **maintaining your individuality despite this** :

> **I AM AND ALL ARE WE.**

Both Talos and Vivec are said to have ascended to godhood by achieving CHIM. This is the same method that is shown throughout the Ascension arc for Eres, albeit in a different manner based on my own interpretations of Elder Scrolls lore.

For example, in the lore, there is the concept that the Godhead is permanently asleep, the TES universe is his dream, and he does not exert conscious influence (because it is a dream). If he wakes, the dream “ends”, and therefore the universe would be destroyed.

This is a departure from how it is presented in _Vigilance_ , where is the Godhead is an entity who dreams, but also can appear as a facet in order to administer the “final test” – which is the confrontation between Eres and the Godhead in the Chamber of Ordeal. He does not necessarily exert conscious influence, but confronting him, and the existence of him (and therefore his dream) is a key part to achieving CHIM as it is shown in Vigilance, as opposed to how it would likely be described by developers/writers of the TES universe themselves. This is both for the sake of simplicity and for narrative purposes.

**IV. On Septimus Signus and the Oghma Infinium**

After all this, people may be wondering what the connection of Septimus Signus and the Oghma Infinium had to do with the Ascension arc. The reasoning is fairly simple.

Septimus Signus canonically lost his mind after reading an Elder Scroll, which led to his expulsion from the College.

The Dwemer lockbox Septimus wants to open in the quest **Discerning the Transmundane** is one he was told would contain the **Heart of Lorkhan** – Septimus was hoping to find the **source of divinity**

Septimus makes several references to **dreams** throughout his dialogue, which allowed me to make the connection between his condition and Eres’.

Upon approaching the **Oghma Infinium** \- a book penned by **Xarxes, an aspect of Arkay** – he is disintegrated into ash. There is of course some debate on how he died, and I believe the prevalent theory is just that Hermaeus Mora killed him, however for the sake of _Vigilance_ and the Ascension arc, this death was shifted into being a consumption by being granted knowledge he was not equipped to handle – that of the world itself, and how it works. **In essence, Septimus Zero Summed.**

 **Zero Sum: Failure to keep one’s individuality in the presence of the Tower will result in the erasure of its viewer from the universe.** Keeping one’s individuality will allow one to achieve the state of **CHIM** , and ascend beyond mortality.

* * *

* * *

Phew. That was a lot right?

If you still don’t quite “get it”, here’s the TLDR version:

 _Vigilance_ makes minor adjustments to lore for the sake of simplicity or narrative purposes. The general summary of the story throughout Acts 4 – 7 is this:

  1. Eres is a Shezarrine, and the Dragonborn. She already has a connection to Shezarr prior to Coldharbour.
  2. Shezarr’s hold on Eres is diminished by Kynareth upon absorbing Kahkaankrein, which allows Eres to return to herself. However, Shezarr’s influence upon her is not completely gone following Coldharbour.
  3. Eres’ instances of comas are results of facing the Truth, in terms of the **Psijic Endeavor** , which is **“** _a process of reaching glorious apotheosis **where time itself is bent inward and outward into a shape that is always new** , allowing its users to aquire states of existence that reach beyond the abilities of even gods.”_ The usage of Dragon Breaks to rewrite history within Coldharbour revealed parts of this Truth to Eres before she was able to comprehend it. Shezarr then induced the comas in order to allow Eres’ mind to repress the memories of the Breaks to give her more time to prepare for the final confrontation with the Godhead at the end of Act 7.
  4. There are multiple references to **apotheosis** , or the act of achieving godhood, throughout Acts 4-7, both by means of being raised to godhood by another god (such as Arkay was raised by Mara) and that of mantling (Shezarr, mentions of Jyggalag/Sheogorath), and that of CHIM (mentions of Vivec, Eres receiving Talos’ namesake, etc.).



The Ascension arc was _hinted_ first in Act 4. Act 5 is where the arc officially began. The end of Act 6 was sort of the ignition phase of it ramping up. The entirety of Act 7, especially in the second half, was building up this Ascension plotline in the background until it shifted to the foreground at the end. Eres’ uncertainty regarding fighting Alduin, and the focus upon her belief she would die against him, was a distraction.

Keep in mind, when reading, that _Vigilance_ is told through a third-person limited narrative structure. The reader is only given what information the POV character is aware of. For Eres, Alduin was the primary looming threat, and she was not aware of Kynareth choosing her to confront the Godhead. This is why Alduin was built up to be more of a threat (as it was Eres’ primary concern) compared to the ending, where Alduin was an afterthought – the actual climax of the plot that had been running since Act 4 shifted into the foreground. Alduin was _not_ the “Big Bad” of the act. He just seemed to be, because Eres (and therefore the reader) didn’t know otherwise.

* * *

###  **A FINAL NOTE:**

It is, of course, expected that your mileage may vary as a reader. Some readers may have thoroughly enjoyed the ending of Act 7. Others may have been disappointed, or turned off. That’s alright. It was a risky endeavor to begin with, and I did not expect it would be a super popular decision. If you’re not a fan of the direction Act 7 took, that is perfectly fine! I hope you enjoyed the rest of it until then.

For those of you who are still interested in seeing what other adventures Eres and Serana have in the future, stay tuned. Act 8 is currently in the planning phase! We’re going to Valenwood!

I hope you all stick around for the journey, as we still have a very long way to go. Thank you all for your support thus far, and I hope to see you guys enjoying the next installment of _Vigilance_ as well. Your support and readership means the world to me.


End file.
